BV 1 
 
 550 , 
 
 .B27 1854 
 
 1 
 
 Barrett ^ 
 
 , Alfred, 
 
 1808-1876 
 
 The 
 
 ministry and 
 
 polity of 
 
 the 
 
 Christian church 
 
THE 
 
 MINISTRY AND POLITY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 
 A 2 
 
THE 
 
 MINISTRY AND POLITY 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHUECH : 
 
 VIEWED IN THEIR SCIlIPTrRAIi^'»5FD THEOlOeiCii: ^''' 
 
 AND IN RELATIQafTO PI 
 PROFiaED BY 
 
 THE WESLEY^ ItH'^^^^ ^ ^ ''' ^ "^ ^ 
 
 REV. ALFRED BARRETT. 
 
 ' ScRiPTURA ecelesiam sustentat : ecclesia Scripturam cnstodit. Quand5 viget ecclesia, 
 Scriptura splendet : quandii ecclesia aegrotat, Scriptura situm contrahit. Itaque Ecclesiic 
 Scriptiirseque fades simul Tel sana solet apparere, Tel morbida : et ecclesise constitutioai 
 subinde respondet tractatio Scriptura;." — Bengelius. 
 
 LONDON : 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN MASON, 
 
 14, CITT-EOAD ; 
 SOLD AT 66, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 1854. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM NICHOLS, 
 
 32, LONDON-WALL. 
 
PSIITCETOIT 
 PREFACE 
 
 These pages are not written with any desire to 
 place the subject of Wesley an economy obtrusively 
 before the public. The writer would gladly have 
 spent his spare and treasured moments in thinking 
 on subjects more congenial to his taste ; just as the 
 people of his own communion, in general and at all 
 times, would rather occupy themselves in fulfilling 
 the higher claims of their Christian calling, than 
 in apologetic controversy : but as the economy in 
 question has been violently assaulted, and its agree- 
 ment with Scripture made matter of doubt or 
 denial, a necessity arose for examining this subject 
 to its very foundations. 
 
 It is matter of notoriety that a rent and division 
 from this communion has taken place. To have 
 attempted to argue with the authors and consum- 
 mators of the schism, while the whirlwind of agi- 
 tation was in progress, would have been vanity 
 itself; and, indeed, in instances where the essay 
 was made, it proved to be vain. It had been 
 a weary task, and fruitless as well as weary, 
 to follow through aU the windings of their course 
 
vm PREFACE. 
 
 those who hcgan by recalling us_, as they professed, 
 to the first principles of Wesley^ s ]\Iethodism, 
 and ended — if, indeed, they have ended — by de- 
 nouncing those principles as being the veiy essence 
 of tyrannical usurpation of the privileges of God^s 
 people. In the tumult of passion men regard neither 
 reason nor the Divine word ; and therefore, before 
 '^the wisdom that cometh from above" can be pro- 
 perly appealed to, it is needfid to pause a little. 
 
 To have refuted at the time of their utterance the 
 innumerable calumnies, misrepresentations, sophist- 
 ries, and bitter declamations made before excited 
 and sometimes irreligious assemblies, and still 
 oftener written and circulated in printed publica- 
 tions, would have been all but impossible; 
 not because of the amount of misconceived tinith 
 contained in these effusions, but because of the 
 complication or universal intertcxtui'e of dis- 
 tortion and falsehood. No man who has any 
 regard to the laws of righteous controversy, or has 
 any wish to maintain the Christian spirit, would 
 think of submitting a solemn question contained 
 in the New Testament revelation to the vote of 
 a public meeting, where men of all creeds and 
 negation of all creed are wont to meet together. 
 Methodism is, of course, as legitimate a subject 
 for fair and lumourablc criticism on the part of 
 persons eomi)ctent to the task as any other system ; 
 for the ^lethodists have exercised it in reference 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 to others : but there is as much difference between 
 this kind of criticism and the course which has 
 been followed^ as there is between the confiding 
 converse of a Christian home, and the blind and 
 forceful contentions of a multitude in the street. 
 Those who have had confidence in the Head of 
 the church have preferred_, therefore, not to use the 
 weapons of their opponents in their own defence, 
 but rather to abide in the path of duty, and wait 
 the issue. 
 
 The matter before us is one of simple appeal to 
 Holy Scripture, and subordinately, by way of illus- 
 tration, to chm'ch history. This Expository Essay 
 is, therefore, written in the first place to \indicate 
 the Conference in maintaining, at much cost and 
 suffering, those principles of order and discipHne 
 which gradually grew up through providential sug- 
 gestion, and were adopted, in that great revival 
 of religion in the eighteenth century, by the Rev. 
 John Wesley, and those who laboured with him; 
 principles which carry an antecedent presumption 
 as to their scriptural integrity, not only from their 
 acknowledged practical efficacy, but as they supply 
 a religious provision for a religious and not a poK- 
 tical need. The Conference stands strong in the 
 affections and adhesion of the great body of the 
 wisest and best of the Methodist people ; and the 
 following chapters are intended to give to all candid 
 Christian men the reasons why it is so. Those 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 who have attempted to tm*n a Protestant ciy against 
 tlie Wcsleyan-^Ietliodist ^linistiy in general, and 
 to stigmatize its maxims and acts as Popery, are 
 either ignorant of the relative characters of Popery 
 and Protestantism, or else they have attempted to 
 commit a fi-aud upon the public. An intelligent 
 Romanist could only smile at such a feint. The 
 earliest and best Protestant Confessions are all on 
 the side of the AVesleyan ^dew of the Christian 
 ^linistry. That ]\Iinistry labours rather to give 
 depth and intensity to the Protestant feeling, than 
 to weaken it, knowing well where the soul of the 
 opposition between the two systems lies. 
 
 Another intention of the author is, if possible, 
 to win back, by these representations of Scripture 
 teaching, those who, although at present gone from 
 us, are not utterly alienated in heart, but have 
 some yearnings after the pastures which they 
 left, and left perhaps more from yielding to the 
 influence of others, than from any adverse convic- 
 tions or dissatisfaction of their own. !Many, indeed, 
 he has known, who knew not why they had left, 
 except that others had persuaded them that there 
 was something ^wTong, and that they ought to leave. 
 Towards such he feels the tendcrest compassion; 
 and abundantly will he rejoice if this book should be 
 the means of restoring but one individual or house- 
 hold to a once-cujoyrd but long-forfeited peace. 
 Compassion, indeed, is due, and is deeply cherished, 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 towards those whose recoveiy to our own com- 
 munion is hopeless, and who_, in many instances, 
 perhaps never really participated in its spirit ; but 
 these can only be followed by our earnest prayer, 
 that they may find sustenance in other folds, 
 and may not fail of being gathered to the Good 
 Shepherd at last. 
 
 This opportunity is likewise used for uttering a 
 warm protest against the unkindness of some 
 Christian Ministers, dm-ing the late strifes, — most 
 of them connected with Congregational denomi- 
 nations. Towards all Evangelical and Protestant 
 Nonconformists, the Wesleyan Ministry from the 
 first has endeavoured to maintain the most friendly 
 relation : their eminent Preachers have been wel- 
 comed to our pulpits ; their practical and devotional 
 "vvritings have been largely commended to our peo- 
 ple. No dispute among them, nor any schism in 
 any church, has ever been exasperated by our inter- 
 ference : no disciplinary act of theu's has ever in our 
 circle been called in question. Their wisest and most 
 devout Pastors, with whom we have had occasional 
 intercourse, we have rejoiced and stiD. rejoice to 
 acknowledge as fathers and brethren in Christ. But 
 that some should so far have forgotten themselves 
 in the late agitations, as to throw open their arms 
 and lend their places of worship to those who were 
 endeavouring to subvert our order ; and not only 
 so, but that they should have sought, through the 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 medium of the press, to embitter those disaffected 
 persons still more against om'selvcs, and to cover 
 our own character and motives, in the same way, 
 with the utmost odium ; — this is a return we were 
 hardly prepared for. Placed as the Wcsleyans are 
 by Divine Providence in a middle position between 
 the Established Church of this country, and the 
 Dissenters, their INIinisters, of course, enter upon 
 this position Avitli their eyes open, and make their 
 account to meet it AA'ith all its perils : but surely, if 
 they offer an olive-branch to each of their neigh- 
 bours, the proper retm-n from either is not a sword. 
 Such a com-se, in the name of our common 
 Master, we are bound to rebuke, rather than to 
 argue or remonstrate respecting it ; and the merest 
 babe in religion, who respects the high ethics of 
 the New Testament, has an undoubted right autho- 
 ritatively to rebuke it. I trust the past v>-\\\ be 
 forgotten, and that the ^Methodist people will still 
 keep to their Founder's principle, — that is, be " the 
 friends of all, the enemies of none ;" and, still more, 
 I tmst that the general and collective amity of the 
 respective bodies will be preserved : but truth and 
 candour would liave been slurred and sacrificed, 
 had not this brief mention of the past been made. 
 A fourtli and final reason for publisliing these 
 arguments is, that all faitliful AVesleyans may see 
 that the stand made by the Conference against 
 democratical usurpation, has not been a contention 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 for a point of self-will, or of class-dignity, but of 
 REVEALED TRUTH. Their consciencc, in the sight 
 of God, has been called on to fulfil its most 
 anxious and yet most imavoidable office. If they 
 have been happy enough, with their fathers, to know 
 the mind of God, they may safely leave all other 
 questions to their providential issue. Good and 
 earnest men will not desire to trouble themselves 
 unnecessarily with a second thought. As a people, 
 we are endeavouring to come from the controversy 
 in charity with all men, not unmindful, however, 
 of the lessons which affliction has taught us. Our 
 ranks have been thinned by defection and deser- 
 tion; but they are unbroken, and we trust their 
 compact is getting firmer. 
 
 Wesleyan Methodism at large is deeply 
 indebted to the fortitude of those Ministers and 
 eminent laymen, who, in a time of unparalleled 
 trial, have kept against all assaults the deposit 
 committed to their trust. Future generations will 
 thank them for it. We utter no note of exultation ; 
 we are too sorrowful, and too much humbled, 
 and have too much reason for confession of sin 
 before God; but we trust we shall come puri- 
 fied from the fire. The present aspect of the world 
 shows that there are higher things to attend to, 
 than matters of church-government ; though these 
 last, as being part of the whole counsel of God, 
 have their peculiar and relative importance. 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 The Great Husbandman is purging His floor ; 
 and inexpressibly solemn is the duty of those 
 concerned to gather the wheat into His garner. 
 
 For the present work the author has had no 
 learned leisure. It has been composed in snatches 
 of time, and amid innumerable anxieties and dis- 
 tractions. Under such disadvantageous cii'cum- 
 stances he has done his best to serve a great and 
 good people : and he must now leave the result to 
 the blessing of God and the candoui* of the Chris- 
 tian public, and in the hope that he may never 
 have to recur to the same theme. 
 
 A. B. 
 London, 
 
 February 2Wi, 1854. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Page. 
 On the Nature of Goteknment, vie-wed as civil or 
 ecclesiastical 1 
 
 II. 
 
 Christ's initial Teaching 38 
 
 III. 
 
 The Church, -what, and of whom composed 93 
 
 IV. 
 Diyine Vocation and Separation necessary to i'he 
 
 Pastorate 116 
 
 V 
 
 Christian Ministers: their Names and Identity of 
 Order 145 
 
 VI. 
 The Dlaconate 195 
 
 VII. 
 Liberty of Christian Service 213 
 
 VIII. 
 On the Connexional Principle 237 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Page. 
 Laity : their Influence and Co-working 290 
 
 X. 
 
 Lay Influence and Co-ayorking, as embodied in 
 Methodism 348 
 
 XI. 
 Pastoral Obligations 368 
 
 XII. 
 Ministerial Qualification 425 
 
THE 
 
 MINISTRY AND POLITY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON THE NATURE OF GOVERNI^IENT, VIEWED AS CIVIL 
 OR ECCLESIASTICAL. 
 
 " The dignity of tlie commandment is according to the dignity of the 
 
 commanded: the just and lawful sovereignty over men's 
 
 understanding by force of truth rightly interpreted, is that 
 which approacheth nearest to the similitude of the Divine rule." 
 — Lord Bacon. 
 
 § I. The Supreme Governor of all creatures is 
 God, whose scrutiny none can evade, and by whose 
 final judgment the everlasting state of intelligent and 
 responsible agents must be determined. His right to 
 rule is absolute and illimitable, and naturally Aoaas 
 from His perfection, as He is the only Infinite and 
 Eternal One; so that, instead of being amenable to 
 any for the exercise of His power. He is the sole 
 source from wliich power can proceed: which doc- 
 trine the Apostle sums up in ascribing to Him this 
 title, " the blessed and only Potentate ; who only 
 hath immortality, dwelling in the hght wliick no man 
 can approach unto." (1 Tim. vi. 15.) God the 
 Father is '' the only Potentate " legislatively, as being 
 
 B 
 
5i GOD THE SOURCE OF POWER. 
 
 the original fount of law : God the Son is the same 
 administraiivehj, as being ]\Iediator, and authority 
 being given Him to execute judgment, because He is 
 also the Son of Man: (John v. 27 :) God the Holy 
 Ghost is the same executively, as He is the Agent by 
 whom human minds arc directly affected, and all 
 intelligent actions are Hnked to their issues. All tliis 
 arrangement has to do at present -vnth a state of trial, 
 and will be followed by an act of final adjudication ; 
 after which Eather, Son, and Holy Ghost is all in all. 
 
 Angels, as far as we can judge, are governed by 
 the simplest intimations of the Divine will ; the recti- 
 tude of their natures being such, that they answer at 
 once, and yA\\\ tremulous sensibility, to every, even 
 the lightest, breath of the Spirit : and as there is no 
 repulsion of the wiU of God in their bosoms, so there 
 can be no want of harmony and consent between their 
 ranks and orders ; insomuch that with them light and 
 love, approval and Anil, flow into each other; and 
 whatever distinctions there may be among them of 
 " thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers," such 
 terms can never imply the holding in varied degrees 
 of a forceful authority to constrain unwilling natiu'cs, 
 but rather a higher power of influence and thought, 
 communicating its bliss to those who are below, — a 
 graduated dignity of nearer access to God, — a power 
 to reveal a fuller licaven, and draw others towards it. 
 
 AVith men on tlie earth it is far dilliTcnt ; at lea^t, 
 with men so far as they stand related to eacli other 
 in civil society. The guilty and corrupt estate in 
 which we are plunged has made a coercive govern- 
 ment necessary, liroken ofl' from (Jod by the canial 
 mind, our bond of mutual union is lost, and a con- 
 
COERCIVE LAW NECESSARY. 3 
 
 flict necessarily takes place between the warring wills 
 of men ; and where individual powers approach near- 
 est to equality, there in disputes the fiercest struggle 
 for the place of govenunent \Yill be; for there the 
 claim of pre-eminence of one over another is with 
 greatest difficulty set up. Civil or coercive power is 
 therefore, as St. Paul teaches, "an ordinance of 
 God," and the necessity for it arises out of our loss of 
 the sanctifying Spirit; for, if all had retained that 
 blessing, we might have been swayed by the simple 
 and direct rules of revelation, — our \Aalls answering 
 to the Divine will as face answers to face in a 
 glass. 
 
 This power is created by the providential investi- 
 ture of some men with physical prowess, or mental 
 force, or patriarchal relationship ; by their being 
 gifted with rectoral wisdom, or by their being con- 
 ducted tlirough tangled and difficult circumstances 
 into the position of benefactor and dehverer. It is a 
 power to de\dse and administer law, and secnre obe- 
 dience to the same, by guarding and defending the 
 loyal, and punishing the disobedient with pains and 
 penalties proportioned to their crimes. The end to 
 wliich it is directed is the external peace and pros- 
 perity of the commonwealth, the apphcation in the 
 best way of the energies of each member to the 
 welfare of the whole, restraining the personal will or 
 liberty of that member at the same time, so far as its 
 exercise might injure the whole ; and then reflectively 
 making the elevation, wealth, or honour of the com- 
 munity or nation tell upon the advantage of the 
 individual. Thus the influence works in a circle ; 
 but it is a circle wliich belongs to this world, — taking 
 B 2 
 
4 ADAPTED TO A FALLEN STATE. 
 
 care at tlie same time to remember that man is made 
 for society, and society for God. 
 
 Sucli an ordinance is a mercifid provision for man 
 in a broken and fallen state. It secures, in our con- 
 dition of estrangement from God, a steady share, by 
 guarding us from violence and wrong, of such bene- 
 fits of this life — for instance, the fruits of industry, 
 skill, and commerce — as shall fit us for becoming the 
 subjects of a higher, even a spiritual, administration ; 
 for, ^A•ithout the tranquilhty aftbrded by the one, there 
 would be no leisure or opportunity for fulfilling the 
 requii-ements of the other : and besides tliis, as civil 
 polity certainly brings out some of the fi'uits of man's 
 moral agency, and shows especially the happiness that 
 flows from a mse and just rule, it cannot fail to sug- 
 gest to thoughtful natures the idea of a yet higher 
 happiness, to be reahsed through a system which 
 shall appeal to more dehcate and less selfish motives, 
 and aim at a nobler end. 
 
 § II. "With the teaching of such scriptures as 
 Rom. xiii. 1, and 1 Clu*on. xxix. 11, 12, the theory 
 which some hold, of the sovereign power of the whole 
 couununity, is quite untenable; except in the sense 
 that the community in question is held to include 
 those superior persons who are designated and quali- 
 fied by God as judges and rulers ; for it is oidy 
 througli the medium of these latter, tliat power, pre- 
 dicated of a society of men, can, from an abstract 
 idea, be made an efficient reality. If the persons 
 who constitute a civil society were aU made to a 
 low and even standard, as to intellect, knowledge, 
 disposition, and strength respectively; if tliere were 
 no miglit under which weakness might shelter, no 
 
POLITICAL POWER NO ABSTRACTION. 5 
 
 wisdom or learning from which ignorance might draw 
 light, no fatherly — involving filial and other — rela- 
 tionsliip from which sj-mpathy might rise and grow ; 
 govermnent would be impossible, and a body pohtic 
 could no more be formed of such materials than an 
 arch could be constructed of right-angled stones. In 
 every society, tribe, or nation, there are those who are 
 draT^Ti, driven, or permitted by the Almighty to frame 
 and promulgate law ; a work for which tens of thou- 
 sands of others have neither knowledge nor any other 
 qualification, — ^no matter whether the administration 
 of it be invested in one or in several: so that the 
 people, as distinct from rulers, can never make rulers ; 
 they can only accept those whom God has made. 
 Nor can they determine to live without rulers; for 
 civil government is an absolutely necessary condition 
 of human society; the obKgation to submit to rule 
 being anterior to any appointment of man, and flow- 
 ing from the constitution of tilings by God, as that is 
 seen from a simple family or household, to the liighest 
 form which society takes. 
 
 If the proposition were tliis, — that the people, 
 apart from parhament, councils, or King, are the 
 source of all sovereign power, — it would not be true ; 
 for power, in the pohtical sense, is a mere abstraction 
 or cliimera, unless defined in intelligent legislation, 
 and brought into prompt and orderly execution. Nor 
 is it true that the whole community, including even 
 its counsellors or rulers, is the source of sovereign 
 power; it is only the primary subject in wliicli that 
 power inheres: the origin or source is God: "There 
 is no power but of God: the powers that be are 
 ordained of God." (Rom. xiii. 1.) And He, m His 
 
6 GIVEN TO SOCIETY, NOT CREATED BY IT. 
 
 wisdom, has left the investiture of it in one individual 
 or more, that is, in monarchical or other forms, to 
 the united wisdom or willingness of society; inso- 
 much that, while the source of the power is Divine, 
 the form of its application is, as St. Paul declares, an 
 " ordinance of man," to which we are required to sub- 
 mit ourselves, yet still " for the Lord's sake." 
 
 Sovereign power is, therefore, rather intrusted to 
 the whole community of each tribe and nation by the 
 Lord of the whole earth, than originated by that 
 nation ; for He has always secured in His providen- 
 tial rule that superior persons shall be found, in whom 
 the ^^sible and administrative government, with the 
 consent of the whole, shall be vested, and tlirough 
 whom it shall inhere in the ^A'hole. The analogy of 
 tliis is found in all nature : one particular instance in 
 respect of the ruling bees, and their connnunities, is 
 referred to by the elegant Eoman poet Virgil : 
 
 " Ipsi jter medias acies, ixsignibus alis, 
 Ingentes animos anyusto iii pectore versanti 
 
 — Georg.,]\h.\v., 82: 
 
 and as to the obedience of the rest, and the necessary 
 connexion of the Kings with the commonwealth, to 
 make it a commonwealth : 
 
 " Rege incohimi, mens omnibus una est ; 
 Jmisso, niperejidem ; constructaqtie mella 
 Diripuere ipsa, et crates solvere favorum." 
 
 —Georg., lib. iv., 212-214.* 
 
 * "The Kings themselves amid the hosts, signally set forth by 
 their wings, exert great souls, each within the confines of a narrow 
 
 bosom The King being safe, one mind penades the whole : but, 
 
 lo ! he being dead, they have dissolved their nnion ; they themselves 
 have rent the fabric of their lioney, and demolished the structure of 
 their combs." 
 
CHURCH- GOVERNMENT A HIGHER ORDER. 7 
 
 A lowly figure may illustrate a great subject. The 
 minor acts of the Divine administration reveal the 
 principles of the original council. A sunbeam is a 
 sunbeam still, though it may have radiated very far. 
 And, to show how entirely the whole ordinance of 
 temporal government is secondary and under Di\dne 
 control, liistory is full of evidence, that when nations 
 have been given to wickedness, then, in spite of legis- 
 lative wisdom, literary riches, physical resources, and 
 martial power, they have perished away, their judg- 
 ment-day being as sui*e to come in this life, as the 
 judgment of individuals when this life is no more. 
 
 The whole arrangement is made for man as he is a 
 dweller on earth, — for man in his greatest distance 
 from God; in order that he may not perish by the 
 wickedness of his fellow-man, nor be the cause of any 
 one's perishing ; and that the earth, with all its tribes 
 and tongues, may be in a position to hear the word 
 of the Lord. 
 
 § III. But church-government is an arrangement 
 of a more spiritual character. It has to do with men 
 as they are regenerate, made new creatures in Christ 
 Jesus, or seeking to become such; with men who 
 have dehcate and holy principles within them ; who 
 can feel the power of appeals that a mere civil subject 
 could not understand. There is a fearful list of moral 
 evils cherished in the hearts of men, and manifest in 
 their life; such as anger, maHce, pride, envy, false- 
 hood, which afflict and damage society, and can never 
 be reached or removed by any civil law whatever; 
 and therefore, in our Saviour Clirist's order, another 
 kind of rule comes in, where the constraint is adapted 
 not to man's natural fear of pains and penalties, but 
 
8 CHURCH-GOVEUNMENT A HIGHER ORDER. 
 
 rather to those liighcr and unselfish motives which 
 belong to what St. Paul terms " the law of the Spirit 
 of hfe in Christ Jesus/' 
 
 Church-order stands in close connexion with tlie 
 kingdom of heaven: not that the churcli on earth, 
 however it may be defined, is itself the kingdom of 
 heaven, but that it is subordinate to the purposes of 
 that kingdom, affording a plan for the general and 
 outward embodiment of its members, and a sphere for 
 the discipUne which they must pass through. Tliis 
 order makes a nearer approach to tlie economy of the 
 angels; the supreme Head and Ruler is nearer; the 
 operation of the Holy Spirit is more direct, and more 
 adapted to that new and inward creation which He 
 has produced, than to a mingled state of things in 
 which the confused motives of a secular multitude are 
 overruled to the ends of civil society. Here the 
 statute-book is clear and all-authoritative, — at least, 
 in its primary or fundamental enactments. It must 
 be regarded as containing the whole mind of the 
 Lawgiver, insomuch that nothing may be taken from 
 or added to these decisions ; and all minor rules can 
 be nothing more than forms of engagement made 
 by mutual consent, to carry out in various places, 
 various ages, and in various forms of society, the 
 spirit of the higher code. 
 
 In some particulars there is unquestionably a Hke- 
 ness between tlie two forms of polity ; as, for instance, 
 tliey both acknowledge one original source of ])ower ; 
 both arc instances of remedial rule fitted to tlu; state 
 of imperfect beings ; both acknowledge and accept of 
 their rulers by consent of the community : but as 
 they include a diil'erent class of subjects, there 
 
DIFFEEENCE BETWEEN THE TWO POLITIES. 9 
 
 will be a broad distinction in such particulars as 
 these : — 
 
 Civil rulers are raised up by the ordinary methods 
 of Di\dne Pro\ddence, working in the laws of social 
 life ; wliile spiritual overseers are called directly by the 
 Holy Ghost^ where the gift is found to be unparted 
 in connexion with the senchng of the summons. And 
 though mistakes^ no doubt, in this erring condition of 
 life "will often be committed by those who are to 
 judge, whether tliis or that man be indeed called of 
 God, and sorrow and trouble will be the result, as well 
 as the reversal often of their decision ; tliis is an evil 
 inseparable from our imperfect estate, though a less 
 one by very far than those wliich are merged in the alter- 
 natives upon wliich men are cast Avhen they make ordi- 
 nation, on the one hand, a sacrament conveying grace, 
 or, on the other, a mere solemnising of popular election. 
 Civil law is immediately directed to the guardianship 
 of society against injury and TVTong, and also to the 
 social elevation and comfort of all the classes composing 
 it ; it knows no liigher end : Christian or church law 
 is as directly turned towards the training of the bap- 
 tized, the awakened, and the weak in the knowledge 
 and love of God, the edification of behevers in faith 
 and piety, the censure of the unfaitliful wdio might 
 corrupt and injiu-e the rest by their example, the 
 preservation in active purity of the truth, and the 
 maintenance from age to age of all the ordinances of 
 Christ. Its end is Christ, His glory and universal 
 rule as connected with the salvation of men from sin ; 
 although the happiness of all the flock is indirectly 
 secured all the while ; and therefore its rules are 
 conceived in the trutliful, merciful, humble, and loving 
 
10 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO POLITIES. 
 
 spirit of the Gospel, and are never stern, except 
 against impenitent transgression. 
 
 Civil law, in convicting or acquitting an accused 
 individual, appeals only to outward and palpable 
 evidence, such as is manifest to all men; deeming 
 that so far as such evidence can be furnished, as to 
 any sin or crime having been committed, so far only 
 outward injurious effects can have been felt ; and 
 thus here its province ends, however the accused 
 may have witliin him a world of iniquity which no 
 laws can bind, and which, in a thousand ways of 
 speech or ^^Titing or subtle evasions, may distress and 
 injure his fellow-men. Christian law, on the con- 
 trary, appeals to conscience in the sight of God ; and, 
 where outward evidence is wanting, may require on 
 momentous occasions a plain answer to a serious 
 question, like that which the Apostle Peter put to 
 the wife of Ananias, saying, "Tell me whether ye 
 sold the land for so much ;" or when Joshua exhorted 
 Achan to give glory to the God of Israel by tell- 
 ing all he knew respecting the accursed tiling. 
 It was doubtless to pro\dde for some sucli neces- 
 sity that the Church of Scotland adopted its oath of 
 purgation .■'*■ 
 
 If serious men feel that the order and restraints of 
 civil society arc insufficient for them, as to tlieir moral 
 discipline and in securing the well-being of their souls, 
 and if they, as children of the light and of the day, 
 therefore put thems(;lves into anotlier kind of frllowsliip, 
 where conscience, trutli, and love are all su])])osed to 
 bear sway, instead of Acts of Parliament and of muni- 
 
 * De. Hill's "Practice of Judicatories. 1830," p. 17. 
 
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO POLITIES. 11 
 
 cipalities, and where they receive the benefit flo^^dng 
 from the working of these higher principles ; how 
 can they object to have their own conscience and 
 truth tested, when it is necessary that some question 
 should be answered which has for its object the 
 clearing of a clouded fact, the bringing to hght of 
 concealed sin, or the vindication in some other way of 
 practical holiness ? so long as no liigher penalty of 
 guilt or contumacy can result than the loss of tliis 
 peculiar fellowsliip. Is it not right that a spiritual 
 conununion should be rid of those who claim to 
 violate its fundamental principles?^ And, on the 
 other hand, can it possibly be right, that where purity 
 and truth in Christ are the professed object of all, any 
 one should refuse to respond to an appeal in his o^vn 
 case ? If men take up wdth a lowered Cliristianity, 
 where their social position and temporal prospects are 
 made better by an accommodated piety, and where 
 considerations drawn from their worldly standing lead 
 them in their religious course to do this or that, then 
 they wiU be repulsive and reserved in answer to Chris- 
 tian inquiry, just in proportion to their worldHness. 
 But it is not of such a standard of Christianity that 
 these pages are intended to treat : we would not 
 superstitiously refine or magnify the Scripture notion 
 of personal godliness ; neither would we in one iota 
 lower it. 
 
 In tliis way the Class-Leader in the Wesleyan com- 
 munion examines weekly each member of his class, as 
 to whether he has a desire to flee from the wrath to 
 come, and whether he is so ordering his rehgious walk 
 
 * See Note (A), Appendix. 
 
12 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO POLITIES. 
 
 as to secure tliis end ; the Leader himself is statedly 
 examined by the ^linister, as to liis views, attainments, 
 and practice ; and so is the ]\Iinister, once or more in 
 the course of the year, on the same points, by liis 
 official bretliren. No doubt, any of these might 
 repel inquiry, as being an infraction of his personal 
 liberty, and might tell his kind interrogator to satisfy 
 himself ^vith outward evidence ; but tlien tliis would 
 be defeating the Avhole end of the fellowship. All 
 these persons come together to have their abstract 
 liberty controlled, so far as the restraint may be made 
 subservient to the good of others, and to their own sal- 
 vation ; in one word, to watch over each other in love. 
 Civil law, as we have before hinted, in pimisliing a 
 transgressor, may inflict loss of goods, or upon his 
 person restraints and pains, even unto death : society, 
 being a sufferer from hun in these very respects, is 
 made the executioner of immutable justice. But Cliris- 
 tian law can inflict notliing but corrective censures, 
 or, in extreme cases, exclusion from the body: the 
 whole family ha\nng suffered only in moral or spiritual 
 respects, the punishment can only take tliat form. 
 This is said, not to lower the conception of its real 
 moment, but to define its natiu-e. Thus tlie rules of 
 a Christian society are constructed only indirectly to 
 the comfort and unity of its members, and the develop- 
 ment of their liberties and gifts. They are made, or 
 ought to be, to aim at once at the rights and interests 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and in ])romoting these 
 there must be the crossing of iiulividnal wills, and the 
 withholding or taking away of individual conve- 
 niences, in iniumierable instances. The best laws of 
 nations are so far difl'ercnt from this, that they arc 
 
PAEABLE OF NEW WINE PUT IN OLD BOTTLES. 13 
 
 never framed with a supreme regard to the Sovereign ; 
 but the Sovereign himself, with all liis interests, is 
 subordinated to the good of the people. 
 
 § IV. Not to anticipate instances of more special 
 scriptural proof, the difference between civil and 
 spiritual polity may be deduced in general from our 
 Lord^s parable of the new cloth put on to the old gar- 
 ment, and the new wine put into old bottles. (Matt. 
 ix. 16, 17.) The disciples of John wished Clmsf s 
 disciples to foUow the rigorous customs observed by 
 themselves and by the Pharisees, as to fast-days and 
 the like ; that is, to adopt in perpetuity the institu- 
 tions of a rehgiou which, as men had made it, was 
 half secular and half spiritual, and in wliich secular 
 rewards held out some lure to the bigoted and formal 
 to go to excess in their formality. Our Lord repelled 
 this movement, by showing, in His own manner, that 
 His rehgion, being unworldly and spiritual in its aim, 
 and seeking the happiness and sanctification of the 
 man, and, tln*ough the renewal of the man, the weKare 
 of the -w'orld, would always form and call forth its 
 own congenial ordinances. Jewish modes of worship 
 and order could no more express the lowhness, purity, 
 expansion, universal love, and devotional fervour of 
 Christianity, than new cloth could be put upon a 
 worn-out garment, or new wine contained in old 
 bottles: and for our present argument the idea of 
 secularised Judaism need only be put for that of 
 secular law. A^liile the Bridegroom is with us, there 
 needs no conformity to a lower standard ; but if He 
 be away, — that is, if His unction and blessing be 
 withdra\^'n, — the compromise wiR take place, whether 
 it be lawful or not. 
 
14 OBJECTIO^'S FROM RO^r. XIII. EEFUTED. 
 
 Some writers, "wlio contend that the principles to be 
 obsers'ed in the government of the church and of the 
 world are the same, are wont to cite such passages as 
 Eom.xiii.2, " AYhosoever therefore resisteth the power, 
 resisteth the ordinance of God : and they that resist 
 sliall receive to themselves damnation,^' in order to show 
 tliat no such strong language is used in reference k) obe- 
 dience to spiritual guides, as that is wliich enjoins sub- 
 mission to the civil power. But the attempt fails. Tliis 
 is not to expound Scripture, but to discredit its testi- 
 mony on both sides, by putting two alleged extremes 
 together, to make them neutralise each other, thereby 
 leaving the impression that they are indeed extremes. 
 
 Obedience to Pastors is enjoined on the ground 
 that " they watch for souls, as they that must give 
 account;" (Heb. xiii. 17;) but in reference to the 
 Magistrate it is urged on the ground of liis being " a 
 terror" to "evil-doers," and because "he beareth not 
 tlie sword in vain :" and the damnation or condemna- 
 tion which transgressors receive to themselves must, 
 in all fairness of interpretation, be understood in 
 harmony witli these representations ; that is, such a 
 condemnation ^ as the Magistrate clothed with terror 
 can inflict; for Clu-istianity makes no provision for 
 sheltering any man from the vengeance of the justly 
 ofl*ended civil ])ower when it judges in civil actions : 
 and tliougli tliis Magistrate is said to be "a mhiister 
 of God," it must be taken in the same sense in which 
 flaming fires are said to be His ministers. (Heb. i. 7.) 
 It is tlie power wliicli is of God in tlie case of the 
 civil ordinance, not the direct appointment of the 
 individual ruler; while in the church we have the 
 
 * 1 Cor. vi. 7, et alibi. 
 
PRIMAllY IMPORTANCE OF MINISTEUIAL CALLING. 15 
 
 sanctiiication and calling of the very person who liim- 
 seK must give account to the Sovereign Head of the 
 church, — a statement never made in Scripture respect- 
 ing any King or Government whatever. Many of 
 those, indeed, spoken of in the Bible, as doing His 
 work and executing His pleasure, were no more than 
 Heathens. The secular power has to do with secular 
 matters, inflicts a secular condemnation, and is itself 
 judged in this world ; so entirely has the word of God 
 distinguished it from the order and rule of His 
 household. 
 
 And tliis calling of the Minister by the Holy Ghost 
 is not a mere accident, but a leading principle in the 
 administering of Christianity, affecting every other part 
 of the outward economy. The attestation of the flock is, 
 of course, necessary, in order to bring the influence of the 
 doctrine to bear practically ; but when tliis is given, and 
 the gifts and graces of the Spirit are likewise present, 
 (wliich last always present the leading proof of its 
 truth,) then the Evangelist, or Pastor, becomes not 
 a mere constituted authority, but a necessary one, — he 
 cannot help, if he move freely, but become such. He 
 is a spiritual father; souls are begotten to Cln-ist 
 tlu-ough his ministry, who look up to liis wisdom for 
 guidance and nurture ; and by the same wisdom subor- 
 dinate fellow-labourers are guided in their work, and 
 all the members of tlie household sustained and 
 enriched by the treasury of truth which he provides 
 and keeps open. Where all hearts are right, the rule 
 of such persons is felt to be no other than a benefit ; 
 and even where discontent and murmuring have crept 
 in, its just and moderate claims are to be asserted ; 
 for so St. Paul asserted the grounds of his authority 
 
16 AUTHORITY NOT MERELY CONVENTIONAL. 
 
 against the schismatic Corinthians : " Though ye have 
 ten thousand " jsaiBar/coyoixi, " instructors in Clirist, 
 yet not many fathers : for in Clu-ist Jesus I have 
 begotten you through the Gospel." As the above 
 term among the Greeks generally signified those who 
 bad the guidance of cliildren to and from school, the 
 Apostle in this sentence contrasted the pastoral title 
 of the Corinthian party-leaders with liis own. The 
 contrast was not founded upon that particular in 
 wliich St. Paul differed from all liis modern suc- 
 cessors, namely, liis inspiration, but on that which he 
 had in common with them, — a fatherly relation to 
 the Christian community under liis care, involving an 
 influence like that of the sun, which continually turns 
 the sun-flower toward itself. 
 
 § V. ALL tliis shows the utter unsoundness and 
 opposition to the Bible of a democratic theory of 
 church-government. AMien private Cliristians claim, 
 as many do, their right to take a personal part in all 
 church acts, whether of legislation or administration, 
 on the ground of their membership in tliis hcaveidy 
 family, and declare that it is their inalienable privi- 
 ledge as the children of God; we are at a loss to 
 know in what place of Scripture, in what analogy of 
 nature or of the Gospel, this ground of claim is to be 
 found. That a Christian society sliall, by the assent 
 of its wisest and best members, affirm the rules by 
 which it is proposed to carry out, amongst the whole 
 of those members, and at that special time, the laws 
 of Clirist, is a necessary ])rinciple of all spiritual 
 government ; for here force can have no place. But 
 that each one of the flock in the fold shall liave a part 
 of the pastoral care in admitting and excluding mem. 
 
PRIMAEY AND SECONDARY RESPONSIBILITIES. 17 
 
 bers^ — that each child m the household, joimg or old, 
 foohsh or wise, shall take part in its economy, — is a 
 state of things not more opposed by the figurative 
 representations of the New Testament, than, as we 
 shall see, by its direct preceptive teaching, — to say 
 nothing of the principles which are acknowledged 
 in every naturally organized community. 
 
 Laws, in the primary sense, no church, or class of 
 persons in it, has authority to make. This belongs to 
 Clu-ist alone : all that we have to do is to devise regu- 
 lations or BYE-LAWS, by which His general precepts as 
 to individuals and the whole may be appHed, accord- 
 ing to the period in which we live, and the circum- 
 stances by wliich we are surrounded ; and therefore in 
 tliis matter comprehensive wisdom and experience are 
 the cliief aids on wliich we are to rely. But if Clu'ist, 
 in His primary and all-authoritative legislation, has 
 decided that certain persons shall perform certain 
 functions, and be held responsible for a certain charge, 
 then this is no matter to be set aside or lowered by a 
 bye-law, but rather a settled feature in any scheme 
 of rules whatever, and one not to be altered. 
 
 A man who has the Lord for liis Shepherd has 
 a right to demand that no under-shepherd but one of 
 the Lord^s appointing shall be placed over him: he 
 has a right to say whether or not, in Ins judgment, 
 the Lord has so appointed him : he has a right to re- 
 quire the removal from the fold of those who disturb 
 liis peace, or by their example and influence are likely 
 to mar his purity; and he has a right to ask such 
 scope for the use of liis gifts as may enable liim to 
 stand clear witli his Master, though he must not be 
 the sole judge of those gifts. But he has no right to 
 c 
 
IS COMMUNITIES ACT THROUGH TIIEIR OFFICERS. 
 
 set up a shepherd of his oa^ti, or, luicalled, to turn 
 shepherd himself. As a child, he has a right to the 
 best ordering that the household can furnish, the best 
 nurture, aliment, and training that it can possibly yield, 
 and even to have his feelings and wishes considered 
 in its constitution : but he has not a right to share in 
 the functions of tutor, steward, watchman, so as to 
 interrupt, distract, and confuse them all. The proper 
 idea of the order is, not that these ofiiccrs act tlirough 
 the household, but that the household acts through 
 thcm."^ 
 
 Where a matter has to be regulated on wliich 
 human wisdom can alone be brought to bear, it is most 
 reasonable that this wisdom should receive such gain 
 to its resoui'ces as the mental wealth of the united 
 society or societies can furnish, and that both clergy 
 and laity should have a reason for respecting what 
 should be binding upon all : but who are they that 
 bring this quota of tested knowledge and experience ? 
 Not surely every man, woman, and child, in the whole 
 congregation ; those who have absorbing and domestic 
 cares, — females, servants, and the like ; those who are 
 just escaping from the world, and, as to spiritual sight, 
 are much in the condition of the half-restored person 
 who saw men as trees walking; those who are just 
 rescued by conversion from gross ungodliness ; those 
 who would not then have been in this communion at all, 
 except they had come thither to be guided, alimented, 
 and saved from themselves? Who Avill allirm the 
 contrary of tliis? Who will say tliat individual 
 sull'rage in civil constitutions was ever so universal; 
 
 * Sec Aiicuuisitop ^VuATKLY's " Kinffdoin of the Messiah" OB 
 this point, Essay ii., $ 2, p. 73 ; also Note (H), Appendix. 
 
REASONS OF LAW OFTEN HID. 19 
 
 or that, if written in theory, it was ever foimd possible 
 in practice ? 
 
 No, it is a war against the eternal law of arrange- 
 ment and subordination which prevails tlirongh the 
 universe. AYliere the Christian life flows freely through 
 the connnunity, and it is not hindered by worldly re- 
 straints or barriers, there is a co-working amongst 
 souls by wliich those who are fit to govern are made 
 to govern, those who are qualified to comisel are ad- 
 mitted to advise, those who can strengthen are brought 
 in as an increase of strength ; the various orders take 
 their places, and keep them, just as elements of various 
 density, shaken together in the same vessel, soon take 
 their places uncommingled. 
 
 In all instances where simpHcity and love are in de- 
 fect among the governed, the authors and executors of 
 Clmstian rules operate to great disadvantage. The 
 universal experience of this has given the weight of an 
 aphorism to Hooker's well-known initial sapng : " He 
 that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are 
 not so weU governed as they ought to be, shall never 
 want attentive and favoural3le hearers. '^ In a family 
 those cliildi-en who most need a gentle but firm re- 
 straint are not always those who have the most clear 
 and just convictions of the reasons wliich prompt the 
 authority that restrains them. Indeed, there are many, 
 and not the youngest either, who require the guidance 
 of household rule ahnost in proportion as they are in- 
 capable, tlu-ough their passions or prejudices, of justly 
 estimating it. The authority itself, and their reverence 
 for it, must be in place of such convictions. Proceed 
 in devising church rules, with a very spiritual and 
 world-excluding Christianity in your eye, as your 
 c2 
 
20 UEASONS OF LAW OFTEN HID. 
 
 standard, and you come in collision with those who 
 are yet partly carnal. Act upon a \^^dely realised ex- 
 perience, and you check the young and impetuous; 
 upon a far-seeing -nisdom, and you stagger the head- 
 strong and thoughtless ; upon the history of the past 
 and the knowledge of human nature, and the unlearned 
 cannot see your drift; upon the plainest deductions 
 from the written word, — which, amid the roll of ages 
 and the shifting theories of hmnan pohty, liveth and 
 abideth for ever, — and you come in conflict with the 
 disciples of movement, and worshippers of the spirit of 
 the age, who can hardly be persuaded to stay and ex- 
 amine by the hght of that word ^^hether these things 
 are so. 
 
 This, too, is the case, in general, with the least 
 learned and least sanctified in the community, who 
 are perhaps more to be compassionated than blamed ; 
 while there are others, who can see the beauty and sym- 
 metry of a compact society, and admire it as an object 
 in its total impression, though they can form no idea of 
 the treasures of piety, thought, and experience wliicli 
 have formed the complex parts of the structure, and 
 placed them in their positions of relative order and de- 
 pendence, and therefore are often led to speculate upon 
 alterations Avhich, contrary to their intention, might 
 prove ruinous. Tliey would only slacken a cord, when, 
 lo! the tabernacle trembh^s to its very base. As Hooker 
 observes in substance in another place,* there are many 
 who admire the stateliness of houses and the goodli- 
 ness of trees, who litth^ tliiuk how these (pialities are 
 indebted in thr one case to a fouiulaliou, and in the 
 
 "Ecclesiastical Polity," p. 1, § 1. 
 
CONFIDENCE A CHEISTIAN GHACE. 21 
 
 otlier to a root, and what trouble it would cost to re- 
 veal that foundation and lay bare that root, — a trouble 
 unprofitable to the operators, and not always satisfac- 
 tory or interesting to the lookers-on. It will be seen, 
 too, by those whose spiritual senses are exercised to 
 discern good and evil, wliicli is to have the curse of 
 the Pall tui'ned into a blessing, — that where a person 
 is providentially shut out from the means of gaining 
 legislative gifts and knowledge, by having the charge 
 of a numerous family, or an absorbing business, being 
 nearly uaeducated,or by having that form of piety which 
 vents itself more in the effusions of a warm heart than 
 in the utterances of a clear and large understanding; if 
 he possess the primal Clu*istian grace of charity or love, 
 it ^vill be in lihn a faculty without an object, uidess 
 there be exercised a simple and noble confidence in his 
 fellow-Christians who are a little higher in church- 
 position, especially where probabilities are inunensely in 
 favour of the conclusion that they are wiser than him- 
 self, whether, indeed, they are better or not. If that 
 confidence should sometimes be abused, as in tliis 
 faUible world it wdl be, there is far less of loss to 
 personal dignity in abiding by the principle, and call- 
 ing the defaulter to account, than in wresthng with 
 burly and vidgar eagerness, amid aU disqualifications, 
 for the post of dignity, whether it be of counsel or of 
 rule, to fill it with alternate self-sufficiency and con- 
 fusion, even where this is all. It is better far to take 
 the lowest seat in the synagogue, as our Saviour 
 teaches, and be invited higher, than to press at once 
 to the chief place, and then be shamefully ordered to 
 sit lower, or by the necessity of the case be compelled 
 to do so. 
 
22 GUIDING PEINCIPLES ONLY IN SCRIPTURE. 
 
 § YI. It will be seen, too, by the candid student 
 of Scripture, that minute details of order are not laid 
 down by the Apostles, and that our great work, which 
 in fact forms a part of our mental and moral trial, is, 
 to interpret and apply fundamental statutes. Of all 
 the unreasoning and impracticable dogmatism wliich 
 men have ever shown in their religious controversies, 
 there is none like that which refuses to obey any rule 
 of religious disciphne which is not stated in plain 
 words of some chapter or verse of holy writ, and re- 
 quires on the other hand that every primitive custom, 
 as well as every Divine and apostohcal precept, shall 
 be binding upon behevers. 
 
 The book of God is a book of principles, addressed 
 not more to children than to young men and fathers ; 
 and when we consider the continually altering circum- 
 stances of human tilings from age to age, we may 
 safely say, it comprehensively involves the sanction of 
 a thousand arrangements which have been made in 
 past days, and a thousand more which have yet to be 
 made in days to come, when providential acts of the 
 Redeemer's government, or special fulfilments of pro- 
 phecy, shall by their reflex illumination more fidly light 
 up obscure rules, the leading spirit of which has only 
 just been seen. This is a nobler way, too, of deahng 
 vnth. human nature, which is being educated under 
 the free S})irit for heaven, than by laying down a plat- 
 form, from the very lines and angles of whicli there 
 can be no departure, and so stereotyping minor regu- 
 lations as to give them the air of matliematical detail, 
 while th(;y only ])urpose to carry out a ])rimal obli- 
 gation. Holy Scri])ture is silent in a hundred in- 
 stances in which another principle of sacred constraint 
 
CONNEXION WITH THE STATE. 23 
 
 is understood to have force. " Let all tilings be done 
 decently and in order/' it says ; but what decency and 
 order in religion and God's worship are, the law of 
 nature — wliicli makes youth defer to age, ignorance 
 to wisdom, and prompts men to adopt the social cus- 
 toms of their time; wliich is the intuition of whatever 
 is favourable to composure, unity, moral beauty, and 
 energy — must determine. So that the very same felt 
 rehgious obhgation, Avluch in primitive times adopted 
 as a form of expression the kiss of peace, and 
 the wydirr], or "love-feast,-" now manifests itself 
 in forms wliich are different, though congenial; more 
 in harmony with a state of society which, even without 
 the pale of the church, is now affected by Cliristianity : 
 so that the ^iethodist may meet in class, and the 
 Episcopalian or Dissenter take godly counsel with his 
 friends in private, under equal sanction of Holy 
 Scripture. 
 
 § VII. So far we are speaking of cases in which 
 the Cliristian Hfe has free course, unimpeded by re- 
 strictions and enactments of the civil power. The 
 question may, therefore, be fahly asked. How are these 
 principles of government to be carried out in churches 
 connected with the state, and established by law? 
 Although it is no part of the purpose of this work to 
 answer such a question, it may be freely conceded, in 
 the first place, that where the civil power does inter- 
 fere to prevent the internal economy of a church from 
 arising out of those relations of behevers to each other 
 which are formed by the Holy Spirit in His produc- 
 tion of intellectual and regenerate life ; so far it does 
 interfere wi\\\ the glory of Christ, the beauty of the 
 Lord our God, and the handywork of His people. 
 
24 CONNEXION WITH THE STATE. 
 
 to mar^ obscure, and sometimes destroy both; but 
 whether this hurt and interference be the necessary 
 effect of any and every alliance wdtli the secular power, 
 and whether it be not a fault of administration rather 
 than of principle, this is a question which human 
 wisdom can hardly be said to have answered, and 
 wliich perhaps the acts of Divine Providence can 
 alone determine. In proportion as all connexion of a 
 state mtli Cluistianity is denounced as an evil, civil 
 government itseK must be regarded as partaking of 
 the nature of evil, and as removed from the presence 
 and sanction of the Almighty. Thousands who con- 
 tend for the essential difference of the two polities, 
 there are, who would not be disposed to deny that by 
 wise arrangement they might work in harmonious re- 
 lation; provided that no dissentient were coerced, 
 nor his conscience oppressed. ^^Hiere a Clu^istian 
 society is so extensively established in a land as to 
 include the great majority of baptized and professing 
 inhabitants, where by its institutions it sways the form 
 of Cliristian opinion to all that extent, and especially 
 where it holds territorial property and endo\Mnents 
 which are the means of giving social influence, it 
 thereby becomes possessed of a political poAver apart 
 from all positive arrangements on the subject, Avliich 
 may turn the balance of legislation this way or that. 
 In such case the civil ruler AA'ho would not be a per- 
 secutor must make terms with it. AYhat those terms 
 should be, it is not the piu'pose of these pages to 
 answer. 
 
 § YIII. It is not with a Christian society, how- 
 ever, of this kind that we liave at present to deal. In 
 the liistory of primitive Cliristianity we see pastoral 
 
APPLICATIOX OF SCUIPTUHAL PUECEDENTS. 25 
 
 riile and popular acquiescence gTadually growing up 
 side by side, out of those relations in which beheving 
 men were placed to each other ; and then these very 
 relations, and the duties involved in them, solemnly 
 confii'med by the Apostles, thereby showing that the 
 main series of causes and effects were fulfilling the will 
 of the great Builder of the temple, who shoidd bear 
 its glory, in anticipation of bringing up its top-stone. 
 We therefore take apostolic sanction to be Chrisfs 
 own sanction; and what they acquiesced in and left, 
 to be His sealed institute, even up to the recognition 
 of the seven presiding angels of the churches of Asia. 
 So if, in the rise and estabhslunent of the Wesleyan 
 communion, we find a similar process, a similar con- 
 clusion is inevitable. If the preacliing by faitliful 
 Ministers of the long-neglected doctrines which range 
 around the theme of Clirist crucified, resulted in the 
 salvation of thousands ; if pre^dously-existing arrange- 
 ments made no pro^dsion for their nurture, but rather 
 repelled them; if the old bottles of '^ the Estabhshment^-' 
 could not contain the new vrme of the revival, and 
 fresh means of edification had to be secured by the for- 
 mation of these people into classes ; if those who were 
 wholly separated to the work of the Gospel found the 
 amount of labour too great for them to fulfil, and 
 appointed some of their spiritual children, engaged in 
 worldly concerns, to act under their direction as Leaders 
 and Local Preachers ; if the call of others by the Holy 
 Spirit, and the desired extension of the work of God, 
 made more Ministers necessary, and the first existing 
 Presbyters appointed these as additional Presbyters to 
 fulfil the entire pastoral care ; if the proftering of con- 
 tributions on the part of the people, for the support 
 
26 APPLICATION OP SCRIPTUEAL PRECEDENTS. 
 
 and promulgation of the Gospel, required the appoint- 
 ment of financial officers, as Stewards or Deacons ; if 
 the building of places of worsliip made Ti'ustees also 
 requisite ; if the oversight of so many flocks and office- 
 bearers, the preservation of doctrine and discipHne, 
 the perpetuation of the ministry, and the union of the 
 Societies into one body, made ministerial intercourse 
 needful, and a Conference arose; if, hi progress of 
 years, to gain additional energy and power of expan- 
 sion, the Conference coimnitted a large portion of its 
 details of business to District-Meetings, or smaller 
 associations of Ministers, and invited to its Committees 
 laymen, of wisdom and piety, in numbers equal to its 
 own members ; if, in each pastoral sphere called a Cir- 
 cuit, aU the office-bearers were directed to meet quar- 
 terly, arrange their economical affairs, and judge as to 
 the claims of those who professed to have a call to the 
 ministry, and in aU other matters of an economical 
 nature Kkewise to '^ judge in the church," excepting 
 nothing but the Pastor's function ; and if the whole of 
 these arrangements are made subservient to the work 
 of diffusing the Gospel tlu-ough the world; then there 
 is, I submit, an assurance as ample as can be expected 
 to be given in this state of being, that such a rehgious 
 association is in its main aspect, to say nothing of 
 its results, a scriptural polity, agreeable to the will 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, and calculated to serve 
 His cause and kingdom, by rescuing men from sin, 
 and training them in faith and holiness ; and, as to its 
 influence on good men, securing the greatest amount 
 of permanent co-operation with the least sacrifice of 
 individual liberty. 
 
 In making tliis stiU more plain, the course followed 
 
COMPLICATION UNAVOIDABLE. 27 
 
 in the succeeding pages 'will be to show by exposition 
 how the chiu'ches of the New Testament were de- 
 veloped; and then aR the way along mark the for- 
 mation of their "VYesleyan antitypes by a parallel pro- 
 cess, and test the latter, as far as we may be able, by 
 their authoritative t}^3e. 
 
 AYliere a rehgious communion is large and extended, 
 its economy is necessarily adapted to meet the cases of 
 various orders of men, and its relations ^ill become 
 many and complicated. It will be related to the dif- 
 ferent orders of the people it has to cherish and pro- 
 vide for ; to the churches by which it is surrounded ; 
 to the world which hes in ^nckedness, and especially 
 the unenlightened and Heathen portion of it ; to the 
 years of the past, that it may be faitliful to the prin- 
 ciples which gave it birth, and guard those special 
 truths wliich were committed to its keeping ; and to 
 the years of the future, that succeeding generations 
 may reap the fruit of the toil, experience, and patient 
 suffering of evil which previously have been passed 
 tlu-ough. To thousands of the untliinking and the 
 uneducated, the great breadth and involution of the 
 scheme will furnish particidars of detail, the reasons 
 of which are not very apparent ; and the less the foun- 
 dation of a law is considered or known, the more 
 the law itself may seem Hable to objection; and 
 persons of this class have always been ready to yield 
 to the influence and representations of those who 
 would fain parcel out the whole Cln-istian world into 
 little separated societies of a few scores or a few hun- 
 dreds each, and commit them to their several spheres 
 and simphcity of seK-regulation. 
 
 But, leaving for a moment the consideration whe- 
 
28 MORAL TRIAL INVOLVED IN OUR ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 tlier tliis kind of distribution is according to the prin- 
 ciples and history of New Testament Scripture or not, 
 it has always been found impracticable; for, no 
 sooner has a heavenly charity longed to do sometliing 
 great and effective for the world, than it has looked 
 around for the elements of Christian authority; leagued 
 the churches together, where they were previously 
 separate, in pursuit of the one object; and brought 
 them all to bear upon it luider the influence of some 
 central administration. How else could Missionary 
 Societies have arisen? It may be made, too, to ap- 
 pear that simplicity, and freedom from constraint in a 
 narrow circle, affords not so noble a religious discipline 
 of human nature, and so efficient a preparative for our 
 great future, as an endeavour after a liarmonious adap- 
 tation to an enlarged one. Zeal has a wider sphere; 
 love, a more sustaining and smTounding flame ; humi- 
 lity, a better test ; self-estimation, a juster standard ; 
 and the victory of every Christian grace over its oppo- 
 site evil is a sublime victory, in proportion to the 
 amount of sui'face over wliich the influence of its 
 example rolls. 
 
 This, indeed, is a large moral question which we can- 
 not fully discuss : but all the reasoning which Bishop 
 Butler directs against the objections of those who, on 
 the ground of the supposed recondite character of 
 Gospel doctrines, oppose Christianity, is applicable 
 here. That great teacher shows that this Christianity, 
 in unison with universal analogies, must be a scheme 
 imperfectly comprehended ; and therefore it must pre- 
 sent to the mind of man details of doctrine and obH- 
 gation, the harmonious connexion of which with the 
 great design itself, cannot all at once be made plain. 
 
LAW OF PROGRESS, HOW FAR APPLICABLE. 29 
 
 It is descending, certainly, to a lower linlv in the 
 analogical series, to fix upon an ecclesiastical consti- 
 tution for the illustration of the same tiling: still, 
 where the leadings of Divine Providence alone, not 
 human forethought, have builded the constitution, it 
 is really a link. But here even the free expansion of 
 a system wliich has guarded Cliristian doctrine for a 
 centui'v, without suffering the minutest alteration, and 
 promulgated the Gospel to so great an extent through- 
 out the world, must present portions of economical 
 detail which, on the part of thousands, are rather to 
 be regarded with confiding deference, than rudely 
 clamom-ed at with hasty dogmatism. Errors of admi- 
 nistration, yea, of minute and minor legislation, there 
 may be, which occasionally bring on their own punish- 
 ment ; but those who cannot separate the considera- 
 tion of these from the consideration of the constitution 
 itself, are hardly qualified to reason on the subject. 
 
 § IX. Equally void must be the theory of those 
 who would make church-order conform to the spirit of 
 the age, when that spirit, an intangible and changing 
 thing, would control the fundamental provisions of 
 that order. Progress must be allowed in all things, 
 no doubt ; it is as necessary a law as any other that 
 operates : but real progress must lie in the more per- 
 fect bringing out and appl}dng of the very princi- 
 ples which belong to each department of truth and 
 inquiry, without their being encumbered by those 
 influences from other quarters, wliich often falsify. 
 Tlius progress in politics must consist in a more 
 perfect development of individual resources to- 
 wards the good of the social body, and then back 
 ajjain, in the influence and elevation of the social 
 
30 PEOGEESS^ AND SPIRIT OP THE AGE. 
 
 body being turned to tlie liberty and comfort of the 
 individual, whatever armies and conquerors may have 
 said on the subject and against tliis view of it. Pro- 
 gress in science must involve a wider induction of 
 facts, a more simple interpretation of nature according 
 to laws actually found operating in nature, whatever 
 theories of systematisers may have been found to fight 
 against the conclusions which have in this way been 
 brought out. Progress in art cannot be any other 
 than giving a purer expression to an intense and more 
 delicate perception of formal or ideal beauty, by minds 
 schooled into the true notion of beauty through a 
 deep and child-like study of its archetypes, fabricated 
 in heaven and earth by the hand of God, to the re- 
 jection of whatever in human rules might interfere 
 with the simplicity and authority of this intuition. 
 So, true progress in Cliristian ecclesiastics can only be 
 based on a deeper reverence for Divine authority; a 
 closer copying of the Apostles, as much in their firm- 
 ness as in their love ; a greater anxiety to have respect 
 unto one of the least of Clirist^s commandments; a 
 growing sympathy with holiness ; that humble, loving 
 following of Clirist, amid popularity and unpopularity, 
 which asserts its eternal dissent from the decisions of 
 the carnal mind ; an uneartlily tendency of soul, which 
 aims at fulfilling the loftiest and holiest purposes of 
 the Gospel, while constituting a meeting, electing an 
 officer, or giving a vote ; wliich attempts to maintain 
 the purity of all the precepts of Christ as binding 
 upon all, even while maintaining, under the sanction 
 of the same precepts, the privilege of the single soul ; 
 and this, however all the while the civil community 
 may be settling or unsetthng its affairs. Such a pro- 
 
DOCTHINE AND DISCIPLINE CONNECTED. 31 
 
 gress as this the most conservative amongst us rather 
 ardently longs for than fears. 
 
 § X. One more principle it is needful to observe 
 and holdj — the necessary connexion between a definite 
 form of doctrine, and a suitable, as well as definite, 
 church-regimen, in wliich to conserve and teach it to 
 all around. These two must and will always go 
 together. Doctrine creates its own diffusing agencies, 
 as an overflomng stream hollows out its own channels. 
 Thus a Eomanist creed will requii-e a priesthood of 
 graduated dignity, sacraments alleged to be effectual 
 ex opere operato, and a human head: High Church 
 di\dnity will at least require mitred Bishops, and 
 rigid order: German latitudinarianism of teacliing 
 ^vill have, and has, Erastianism of administration: 
 Calvin's view of the dignity in tliis Hfe of God's 
 people, and their claim to influence in secular affairs, 
 demands ultra-Presbyterianism with its Euling Elders : 
 then, to some minds, by further consequence, his enun- 
 ciation of absolute predestination and election of be- 
 lievers to eternal life, will seem in such respects to 
 assert the equahty of them all, as to require, 'for a fit- 
 ting external order, the Congregational equality and 
 freedom. The subjective or intuitional philosophy of 
 which -we hear so much, which was originated by the 
 ancient Gnostics, and is revived in the modern theoso- 
 phical teaching of Germany, whose course is general 
 unbelief, whose goal is pantheism, and which can see 
 nothing distinctive in inspired as contrasted with other 
 men, — tliis system of thought, when admitted into 
 Christ's church, even in its more insidious or ethereal 
 orms, will allow of no regimen but that wliich one 
 powerful or skilful intellect exercises in overthrowing 
 
33 DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE CONNECTED, 
 
 the theories or positions of another, and so, Kke everj 
 other departure from God, brings us back to chaos : 
 while Quakerism, and the doctrines of the Plymouth 
 Brethren, (though not by any means ranking these 
 among the last tremendous errors,) cannot hold with 
 any settled and separated ministry whatever. 
 
 The Wesleyan doctrines, which deal largely with 
 the possible attainments of life in Christ, and hold 
 out these attainments unto all; which assert especi- 
 ally that real holiness is derived from the filial com- 
 munion with God of men who are justified by faith 
 alone m the blood of Christ, and that such holiness 
 must needs be attested to others by a spotless life; 
 but that the heavenly treasure thus gained may, how- 
 ever, be lost by slothfalness and sin : — ^these require 
 for their guardianship and extension, especially among 
 the industrial classes, a strictness of spuitual exami- 
 nation as to office-bearers, a subordination of one to 
 another, with a putting away of reserve, a mutual 
 watchfulness amongst the ministry, a jealousy every 
 where of the arising of sin in insidious forms; and 
 such rules of action have therefore gi'own up in liar- 
 mony with its polity. 
 
 Let no one, then, fall into the popular delusion, 
 that discipHne may be altered, and yet doctrine 
 remain entire. Let no one too soon applaud, when 
 they hear some men in their controversies say, 
 ''We approve of the doctrine of this community, but 
 recoil from the system of its administration:^^ for tins 
 can really never be. The schismatic Corinthians dis- 
 approved of Paulas presidency over them, because he 
 stood in the way of their errors. Arius denied the 
 claim of the episcopate to be reckoned in a separate 
 
DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE CONNECTED. 33 
 
 status or order, (whether he was right or Avroiig, I do 
 not here say,) because the authority of his friend 
 Eustathius, a member of that body, withstood in his 
 official capacity his tendency to doctrinal and practical 
 asceticism and Arianism. Cartwright opposed the 
 Enghsh Episcopacy, because he deemed it unfriendly 
 to the Calvinian doctrines and the privileges of the 
 people of God : and every Supralapsarian preacher 
 that has ever arisen, has spurned alike congregational, 
 individual, and synodical control, on the ground that 
 a special heir of heaven should not be subjected to 
 any order whatever. 
 
 When, therefore, some guiding regulation of long 
 standing in any administration is assailed, then some 
 doctrine, in the great majority of cases, is either slur- 
 red or doubted : the difference is one of professed 
 form, but it will soon merge into a difference of expo- 
 sition and teaching. Men never contend long for 
 forms as forms, but only as they involve the awaken- 
 ing of peculiar thoughts, and sustaining of certain 
 affections. Let all those who entertain proposals for 
 change of outward order in churches, open their eyes 
 well to this fact, — that such changes are sought for 
 from narrower or broader, more secular or more 
 spiritual, more scriptural or more traditional, more 
 earnest or more heedless, conceptions of Christianity 
 itself; and let them act accordingly. We have no 
 right to confide in God, as the Guardian of His own 
 tmtli, unless we obediently adopt His own method of 
 guarding it. 
 
 Are not the warnings of Holy Scripture, as respects 
 a corrupt ministry, all directed towards the particulars 
 of doctrine and practice ? Men are enjoined in several 
 
 D 
 
34 DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE CONNECTED. 
 
 places to beware of false prophets^ false teachers^ as 
 also to avoid and forsake tliem; but where^ in what 
 place, are they besought to resist certain forms of rule, 
 or to maintain as against that rule certain hypothetical 
 rights ? Such supposed precepts as these last have no 
 PLACE in the inspired word ; the inspired writers never 
 deemed that there was need of them ; and the reason 
 of such silence is this, — that doctrinal and practi- 
 cal PURITY in a Christian ministry, they held to be 
 EVERYTHING; that whcrc these are held and pre- 
 served from generation to generation, they involve 
 by infallible consequence that just balance of the 
 Ministers^ and the people^s rights which, in contrariety 
 to the false balance, is " God^s delight." A ministry 
 that is in this condition, tried by the touchstone of 
 Scripture, is as sure to be mainly right, as a horse 
 that rushes into the battle, an eagle that sustains her 
 flight, a ship that holds on her way, or the hind of 
 Judah that bounds upward on her native hills. 
 
 § XI. And from all tliis it will follow, that the best 
 condition of an ecclesiastical body is that in wliich 
 there is no legislation going on, in the popular sense, 
 at all ; where all are rather occupied, in their various 
 degrees and orders, in attending to the practical work 
 of the Gospel, gathering and saving souls, and train- 
 ing them for the better inheritance, reserving the 
 making of new rules for rare and momentous occa- 
 sions. The love of debate, and of novel legisla- 
 tion, and of floating changes, exists just as the spirit 
 of the world finds entrance, and draws away the minds 
 of men from the absorbing obligations of personal and 
 relative godhness. AMien disorder arises, it arises 
 chiefly from sin : therefore in such a case the rehef 
 
MISERY OF SELF-WILL. 35 
 
 is to be sought by putting away sin, and trusting the 
 great Head of the church with the consequences of so 
 doing, rather than by vainly attempting to silence 
 warring elements in mutually compromising them. 
 If love and fidehty suffer, they will one day have their 
 reward : if individual pride and passion and class- 
 jealousy break out in evil hour into overt act, there 
 is likewise a tribunal for these, where purity by 
 examination is an object paramount above every 
 other. 
 
 In conclusion, if a man will insist upon such a 
 state of things as that he wiU have aU liis own per- 
 sonal rights, and that nothing short of the last 
 fartliing wall satisfy liim ; that he may act upon 
 others, but none shall act upon him ; then he must, 
 in reference to rehgious matters, Hve alone. Ordi- 
 nances must not breathe their Hving influence upon 
 liis soul ; stars in Christ^ s right hand must shed upon 
 liim no lustre ; wisdom and experience must not wait 
 on liis eager footsteps, to enforce its lessons ; none 
 must restrain liim from stretching forth his hand to 
 lay hold on the ark of God, when it seems shaken a 
 little in its troubled journey; no man, however he 
 may have known more than he of the Divine life, and 
 have had a clearer insight of the beauty of holiness, 
 must interfere with the current of his thoughts and 
 acts, let them meddle as they may with the deepest 
 tilings of God. He must have notliing but what his 
 own resources can furnish. Christianity in spirit and 
 in form is what his own perceptions make it : the 
 standard can never rise ; it bears liis own image and 
 superscription. There is no access of constraining 
 light from without ; there is no egress of loving hght 
 D 2 
 
36 APPENDIX. 
 
 from -uitliin. Such solitude is awful^ — tlie solitude of 
 the unruled. 
 
 But when a Christian association is entered for the 
 sake of seeking or securing personal salvation and 
 glorifying God; so many minds^ and orders and 
 states of mindj are there, all involving a natural ten- 
 dency to repulsion, which come to receive the common 
 and counteracting benefit, that there must he an autho- 
 rity somewhere, if the most common degree of respect 
 be paid to the rights of all. An enlarged view of the 
 just claims of all God^s people, from the almost pro- 
 phetic and advanced saint, to the almost infant cate- 
 chumen, requires this boon. Its preservation is their 
 shield from oppression, and the guardian rock under 
 which they repose in the day of fiery heat and trial. 
 It is needful as " the sweet influences of the Pleiades, 
 the bands of Orion," or the great law of gravitation, 
 in regulating the harmonious movements of worlds. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note (A), page 11. 
 
 " Every society recognises peculiar offences, arising out of and 
 depending solely on tlie peculiar nature of the society; so that, 
 in proportion as the latter is understood, the former are defined. 
 Now this right [of imposing sanctions] is either inherent in the 
 society, or conventional, or both, as is the case in most confederate 
 bodies. When the right is limited to what the society exercises as 
 inherent and indispensable, — inherent in its nature, and indispensable 
 to its existence, — the extreme punishment is exclusion, and the 
 various degrees and modifications of punishment arc only degrees and 
 modifications of exclusion." — Dii. Hind's " History of the llise and 
 early Progress of Christianity," Second Edition, 1846, pp. 226- 
 228. 
 
APPENDIX. 37 
 
 Note (B), page 18. 
 "Whatever may be the character and whatever the proposed 
 objects of a regularly constituted community, officers of some kind 
 are essential to it. In whatever manner they may be appointed, 
 whether by hereditary succession, or by rotation, or by election of 
 any kind ; whatever be the number or titles of them, and whatever 
 the distribution of their functions ; (all of which are matters of 
 detail;) officers of some kind every community must have. And 
 these, or some of these, while acting in their proper capacity, repre- 
 sent the community ; and are so far invested with whatever powers 
 and rights belong to it ; so that their acts, their rights, their claims, 
 are considered those of the whole body. We speak, e. g., indifferently 
 of this or that having been done by the Athenians, the Romans, the 
 Carthaginians ; or by the Athenian, the Roman, or Carthaginian 
 government or rulers. And so, also, when we speak of the acts of 
 some University, or of the governors of that University, we are using 
 two equivalent expressions." — Archbishop Whately, " Kingdom 
 of Christ," Essay ii., sect. 2. 
 
 AH this, of course, applies to the organization of a community, 
 naturally or self constituted, and leaves untouched the question how 
 far and in what particulars a Christian church is a 'priori defined to 
 be constituted by an authority superior to itself. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHRIST'S INITIAL TEACHING. 
 
 QefxeXiov yap &kXov ouSels dvuarai 6e7vai irapa rhv Keifievov, os icriv 
 'lr]<Tovs 6 XpiffrSs. (1 Cor. iii. 11.) 
 
 § I. If a wise and accomplished ruler, who had a 
 most perfect insight into all the details of his admi- 
 nistration, as well as a minute acquaintance with the 
 walls and tempers of those whose conduct he had to 
 sway, were to dictate a letter of any length to a con- 
 fidential servant of his on the subject of that admi- 
 nistration, the fulness of his knowledge and feehng 
 might be expected to betray itself, as well in brief 
 hints, apt images, and liappy allusions, as in plain 
 and direct statement. The energy of liis forethought, 
 always looking to the issue of things, would break 
 forth from some sentence wliich was only then con- 
 cerned with a passing particular : it woidd embody 
 itself in some expression which, while it asserted a 
 truth needful for that moment, involved also the con- 
 ception of something beyond, with which it was akin 
 or in harmony : just as, if he were speaking, his soul, 
 full of high purposes, would flash out from his eye, or 
 kindle deepest sympathies by gesture and tone. If 
 his words were ever brought into question, it would 
 not be just or honest to interpret them by the rules of 
 dry grammar or forensic evidence merely, and take no 
 account of his position, nor of his auditors, -with their 
 circumstances and relations. The proper spirit of 
 interpretation would be, that wliich resulted from 
 
HINTS AND IMAGES, NOT VAIN. 39 
 
 a study of liis own spirit iu connexion with liis 
 aims. 
 
 So in the New Testament. The Author of it has 
 such an infinite knowledge of all the springs of action 
 in human nature, — of all the agents who shall move 
 and affect each other in the continuous liistory of His 
 household; of that household itself, its dangers, its 
 needs, its varying fortunes, its final state, — that even 
 hints and images in the evangelical narrative, often 
 thought to be matters of rhetorical adorning, are par- 
 ticulars of a pre-guslmig revelation ; flashes of the 
 Spirit, so to speak, which tell by their pathway whence 
 they come and whither they go, — of that fountain of 
 light which angels and saints would alike explore. 
 
 What would become of the truth, if irapdKXrjro^ 
 were rigidly understood as " advocate,^^ or TroXlreufj^a, 
 " conversation,^^ or cra^jSarLo-fio^, " rest,'^ or eKKXrj- 
 ala, ^^ assembly,^' or arjfMelov, "a miracle?'''' All 
 these terms, as to meaning, and many others like 
 them, shine out from the light which impinges upon 
 them, like gems in the sunshine. 
 
 Although the church had no real existence until 
 after the death and resurrection of Christ, yet it 
 would be most natural to expect, that in the course 
 of His personal ministry^there would not be wanting 
 intimations of its nature. Tliis expectation is reahsed. 
 There are two expressions used in the narrative books 
 of the New Testament to denote the visible aspects of 
 the Gospel dispensation : one is the word "church ;" 
 the other, the phrase, " kingdom of God,^' or its equi- 
 valent forms, "kingdom of heaven,^'' and "kingdom 
 of Christ.''^ The term " church," as we shall see more 
 fully hereafter, describes a company of persons who 
 
40 MEANING OF THE PHRASE 
 
 are united together by a commou profession of the 
 faith of Christy whether that company be a single 
 congregation^ or the aggregate of all congregations 
 throughout the world. Still_, both in its totality and 
 in any of its distinct sections^ this church includes 
 many — for none pretend to maintain the contrary — 
 who have notliing of Cliristianity but the name^ — per- 
 sons who are yet carnal and unregenerate : whereas the 
 kingdom of God is an idea essentially distinct ; and, 
 saving those places where it designates the Jewish 
 Theocracy^ it is restricted in the New Testament to 
 three meanings. 
 
 1. The reclaimed authority of Tather, Son, and 
 Holy Spirit over all the powers of human nature ; or 
 the dominion of Divine grace, abstractedly considered, 
 by which grace men are saved and sanctified ; as in 
 Luke xvii. 21 : ^^ The kingdom of God is within you/' 
 Rom. xiv. 17 : It "is not meat and drink; but right- 
 eousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."*' 
 
 2. The fellowship in living union of those who are 
 brought under this dominion, thereby constituting a 
 spiritual community of real believers ; as John iii. 5 : 
 " Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he 
 cannot enter into the kingdom of God/' John xviii. 
 36 : " My kingdom is not of this world." 
 
 3. The state of the finally redeemed in heaven ; as 
 in Mark xiv. 25 ; Acts xiv. 22 ; et passim. 
 
 The CHURCH is the outward institute, or union of 
 persons, composed of those who confess the Christian 
 doctrine, and are designated as such confessors, what- 
 ever their real character may be, by the sacramental 
 seals ; but the kingdom, in its concrete aspect, is the 
 company of Christ's faithful disciples and subjects, 
 
MEANING OF THE TERM " CHURCH. ''^ 41 
 
 watched over by His eye, though seen, no doubt, by 
 the eve of man as well, especially of spiritual men, 
 yet not with that absolute and unerring discrimination 
 which belongs to the Searcher of hearts : and thus the 
 idea of an imdsible church, distinct from the visible, 
 as it makes clearer no truth, and removes no difficulty, 
 may be safely discarded. 
 
 To the church belong those who profess to repent 
 and believe the Gospel, and who request to be en- 
 rolled amongst Christ^s disciples, or who offer their ad- 
 hesion to the Christian cause through being prompted 
 by " the will of man -" not supposing the absence alto- 
 gether of gracious influence; but still through the 
 will of parents, pastors, friends, or their own as yet 
 unhumbled wiU : but the kingdom consists only of those 
 who by their possession of repentance, faith, and holi- 
 ness, — the first or all of these, — give a character to the 
 general community, and confer upon even the church 
 itself the scriptural title of " holy."' 
 
 The church stands in analogy to the outward sign 
 in the sacraments, because men are made members 
 by baptism, and retained as such by communion in 
 the Lord's Supper. It is the mystic body of Clu'ist \ 
 (Col. i. 24 ;) the vine spoken of in the parable, (John 
 XV. 1,) on which there may be continually appearing 
 fruitless branches, which are to be taken away; the 
 eartlily thing alluded to by our Lord in His chs- 
 course with Nicodemus, to a share in which baptism 
 by water might admit a man. (John iii. 12.) But 
 the other is either the inward rule of redeeming grace, 
 or the company of those who are the very subjects of 
 the Spirit's baptism. It is the life of the vine, the 
 spirit wliich is in the body, the heavenly thing con- 
 
42 PAEABLE OF WHEAT AND TARES. 
 
 trasted with the eartlily which was mentioned to the 
 Jewish ruler, and which faith alone apprehends. Thus 
 the kingdom of God is in the church,, but it is not 
 one with it : the limits of the one are not the limits 
 of the other : faulty communions may be found to 
 contain some who are God^s, and the purest and best 
 some who are Satan^s, children. This kingdom, though 
 set up on earth, is not of earth : it brings aU its appli- 
 ances from above, and does not accept of a single aid 
 from this world, -until it has changed that which is 
 proffered into its own nature. This is the uniform 
 doctrine of the Sermon on tlie Mount, of the parables 
 and the discourses of Christ, as well as of apostolical 
 teaching. Into this kingdom the poor in spirit and 
 the regenerate can alone enter. 
 
 The parable of the wheat and tares, though often 
 loosely quoted to show that the kingdom and the 
 church are one, and that bad and good are blended in 
 the same aggregate notion, really shows the contrary. 
 It shows that none can interfere with the discriminat- 
 ing and judicial acts of the Sovereign of this state, 
 in admitting to, and separating persons from, it : that 
 especially harvest-work belongs to ^^the Lord of the 
 harvest." The kingdom itself in the parable is likened 
 unto a man who sowed good seed in liis field : the 
 sowing of tares by an enemy is another thing alto- 
 gether, and quite distinct from the consideration of 
 the kingdom : and if these tares in the field of the 
 world — which world territorially includes the Cliris- 
 tian community — are found grov\ing up by the side 
 of the wheat, they are not to be rooted out of 
 the world by religious persecution; that is, by the 
 servants of the household seeking the aid of the 
 
PAEABLE OF THE GOOD AND BAD FISH. 43 
 
 secular arm, and putting men to death for alleged 
 heres3\ 
 
 Fallen and unfaitkful men, however separated from 
 the church by its disciphne, as the Scripture elsewhere 
 directs, can oidy be finally severed from the kingdom 
 by Christ, whose ministers in that act will be infallible 
 angels : — infallible, not merely because of their per- 
 fect rectitude and holiness, (Matt. xiii. 41,) but be- 
 cause they act under His eye. This parable leaves the 
 question of church-discipline untouched altogether, as 
 it never could oppose that inspired teaching of the 
 Apostles, which uniformly enjoins the putting away of 
 a -tticked person. It treats of what is done in the field 
 OF THE WORLD, uot of wliat is douc in the more re- 
 stricted sphere of the Christian domain. The parable 
 of the good and bad fish is to the same effect ; (Matt, 
 xiii. 47 ;) where it is to be observed, that although the 
 kingdom of heaven is hkened unto a net which was 
 cast into the sea, and gathered of both kinds, yet 
 tliis is only part of the scene in the parable, and, 
 taken by itself, would be a broken representation. 
 Tlie whole uninterrupted action or simile by which 
 the reign of grace is portrayed, ends with the sitting 
 down on the shore, separating the good into vessels, 
 and casting the bad away, — a prefiguring, as our Lord 
 declares, of the last judgment. 
 
 Only one place in the parables, as far as I have 
 been enabled to discover, even seems to refer to the 
 kingdom as containing the evil as well as the good ; 
 and that is where Christ says, '^ The Son of man shall 
 send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of\l\^ 
 kingdom all things that ofi'end, and them which do 
 iniquity \" (Matt. xiii. 41 :) but the Greek preposition 
 
44 PARABLES IN GENERAL. 
 
 eK, " out of/'' as frequently means " from/^ and often 
 bears the sense of " away from/' Indeed, the first 
 verse of the parable before noted_, which confines the 
 good seed to the cliildren of the kingdom, restrains it 
 to this meaning here :^ so that the whole import is, — 
 Angels shall separate from external conjunction with 
 His kingdom those who are not found at last to be 
 members of it, who have had no other connexion with 
 it than connexion by the church, or by an equal place 
 in the kingdom of Providence. 
 
 And we must not lose sight of a truth in reference 
 to this matter, which is elsewhere declared, — that per- 
 sons, once even i% the kingdom of heaven, may forfeit, 
 by sin, their place in the sight and judgment of the 
 Lord, even before the open and declarative judgment 
 takes place : just as the foolish virgins represent those 
 who were once the subjects of true piety ; or what do 
 their lamps, which, from the same oil, shone and 
 burned for a while, as well as those of the wise, 
 signify ? They portray those who are condemned for 
 the misuse and consequent defect of grace, not those 
 who never had it. But the kingdom of heaven clears 
 itself of everything which is contrary to its own cha- 
 racter. The vessel of the church may carry good and 
 bad, and the field of the Christian world may bear 
 wheat and tares ; but the kingdom only acknowledges 
 the good in the one case, which is the same thing as 
 tlie wheat in the other : and the kingdom of heaven 
 
 * Thus, the passage in 1 John ii. 19 is full to the point, both in 
 philological and theological respects : " They went out," e|, " from 
 us, but they were not," e'l, "of us," &c. Again, James ii. 18: 
 "Show me thy faith," e/c, "without," that is, "apart from," "thy 
 works, and I will show thee my faith," e/c, " by my works." 
 
OUR lord's discourse with NICODEMUS. 45 
 
 itself is never identical mth the church, until the 
 latter is introduced into its indefectible and glorified 
 state. Then it is "delivered up unto the Pather/' 
 and God is '^aU in aU/'^ (1 Cor. xv. 24, 28.) 
 
 § II. Against this view, the words of our Lord to 
 Nicodemus have been urged ; and that, too, by oppo- 
 site parties, as, for instance, Baptists, and Tractarians 
 or High Chiu'chmen : " Except a man be born again 
 of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- 
 dom of God.'' (John iii. 5.) It is said that, as 
 baptism is the door of entrance to the church of Christ, 
 and the badge of Cliristian profession as well, there- 
 fore all rightly baptized persons, and the members of 
 the kingdom of heaven, are one and the same com- 
 munity, — all parties being agreed, that the phrase in 
 question refers to the eartlily, as well as to the heaven- 
 ly, state of its fellowship. This, however, could only 
 be true on the assumption that baptism by water, and 
 baptism by the Spirit, in sufficient measure to produce 
 absolute renewal, took place at the same moment of 
 time. But no such absolute connexion of these things 
 in one act is here imphed, any more than when Peter 
 says, " Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that 
 your sins may be blotted out, when the times of re- 
 freshing shall come from the presence of the Lord ; 
 and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was 
 preached unto you," (Acts iii. 19, 20,) he means to 
 teach that repentance, conversion, forgiveness, the 
 comfort of the Holy Ghost, and the advent of Christ, 
 are effects which all happen together. The connexion 
 of blessings in both cases, as in many other instances 
 
 * See Appendix, Note (A). 
 
46 DISCOURSE WITH NICODEMUS. 
 
 which might be adduced from Scripture^ is not simul- 
 taneous, but successive ; and depends on the frdfihnent 
 of conditions, which are elsewhere stated. This is not 
 to separate baptism from the Spirit, — for an ordinance 
 of Clirist cannot be without His grace, — but only from 
 the direct regeneration of the Spirit. The fact is, the 
 ritual use of water, signifying separation and purity, 
 was no new thing in our Lord's time ; and His words 
 have this force and meaning, at least, nntil the sacra- 
 ment of baptism was absolutely instituted : — " Know 
 that your wonted nse of water as a religious 
 sign must, in the case of those desiring to enter the 
 kingdom of heaven, be necessarily connected with the 
 baptism of the Spirit." 
 
 Nicodemus was a member of the Old Testament 
 church at the time of his visit to our Lord ; and per- 
 sons admitted into that church by circumcision and 
 (probably as the result, on the part of Jewish teacliing, 
 of a merely literal view of EzekieFs prophecy, chap, 
 xxxvi. 25) by the affusion of water, were said to be 
 new-born; and as the thoughts of the ruler were, 
 doubtless, occupied respecting the kingdom of the 
 Messiah, which all were then looking for, — ^^diatever 
 the verbal form of his greeting might be, — our Lord 
 spoke rather to his thoughts, than in direct answer to 
 his first address, and His doctrine, as gathered from 
 both statements above, would altogether be to this 
 effect : " Except thou, already a church-member, yea, 
 except any man be born of the Spirit as well as of 
 water, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.'' A 
 church-member a person may be by sacramental desig- 
 nation, and submission to denominational rules, and, 
 at the same time, a subject of the Spirit's prevenient 
 
DISCOURSE WITH NICODEMUS. 47 
 
 grace ; but he can only be a child of the kingdom by 
 being regenerated, and made a child of God. The 
 third and fifth verses of the third chapter of St. John's 
 Gospel, when rightly understood, are, therefore, in 
 perfect harmony with the doctrine of this section; 
 namely, that although the kingdom of heaven is in 
 the church, it is not one with it, but signifies either 
 the abstract dominion of grace itself, or the actual 
 subjects of that dominion."^ 
 
 * The terms used in this passage are most expressive : iau fi-fi ris, 
 " unless a>t^ otie be born again," &c. ; making the requirement as 
 universal as the race ; while yevu-ndrj &uu6eu may be rendered born 
 from above, and many ancient and modern interpreters have pre- 
 fei-red this reading, to say nothing of the fact, that &vci)6e}/ in the 
 other places of this Gospel means, unquestionably, " from above." 
 Nonnus, the poetical paraphrast of St. John, who lived in the fourth 
 century, and who wrote in Greek, renders it, " a birth," aldepos 
 cwKris, " of the ethereal mansion," that is, heaven. The Evangelist, 
 moreover, explains his Gospel by his Epistles ; e. g., 1 John ii. 29 ; 
 iii. 9 ; iv. 2 ; v. 4, 5 ; showing that the new birth is, initially, the 
 result of faith in Christ : in the last place, most plainly ; for he does 
 not say what he would have said, had he taught the Tractarian theory, 
 namely, ""Whosoever is born of God," (or baptized,) "believeth that 
 Jesus is the Christ ;" but the reverse : " He that believeth that Jesus 
 is the Christ is bom of God." Still, to explain the words above in 
 the sense of being born only of "the Spirit, as emblematised by 
 water," — thereby drying up the water, as Hooker complains, — is not 
 only a violation of constructive propriety, placing an exegetical illus- 
 tration before the object it is intended to illustrate ; but the whole 
 explanation proceeds from a principle of interpretation which, if 
 applied elsewhere, would take senous and damaging liberties with 
 Christian doctrine. The great stream of intei-preters, from the be- 
 ginning, have expoimded "the water" to mean baptism, i.e., baptism 
 anticipated ; and it is remarkably in harmony with om- view of the 
 present passage, that wherever Christian baptism is subsequently 
 referred to in the New Testament, the possible severance of the sign 
 from the thing signified is clearly recognised, inasmuch as the saving 
 power is referred to the latter. Thus, Acts ii. 38 : " llcpent, and 
 
48 PROMISE TO PETER. 
 
 "Wliefher we take the very simplest forms of Chris- 
 tian fellowship,, or the most elaborate, none can be 
 hardy enough to say, that those forms can be made so 
 true and perfect as to melt into and become the same 
 thing with the sublime spiritual administration of the 
 Redeemer, which saves and sanctifies the souls of 
 men. 
 
 § III. So far, at present, as it respects the kingdom 
 of God. With regard to the word " church/'' in the 
 course of our Lord^s own teaching it occurs only 
 twice : first, in reply to the confession of Peter, 
 
 be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the 
 remission of sins," ets &(peaiv afiaprioiv. Now, why should the 
 Apostle's baptism be thought to be here immediately etficacious to the 
 production of pardon and regeneration, any more than the baptism of 
 John, which was eV vhari ds ^xeravoiav, (Matt.iii. 11,) was efScacious 
 unto repentance ? John's converts were, or professed to be, penitents 
 before they were baptized ; the ordinance did not confer repentance : 
 then, why shoidd the Christian rite ex opere operato confer the 
 Spirit? for the form of expression is exactly the same: "for the 
 forgiveness of sins " clearly means " in order to forgiveness," — this 
 seal of the covenant which promises forgiveness. Besides, the narra- 
 tive woidd show that, although on the day of Pentecost the three 
 thousand gladly received the word, were baptized, and added to the 
 church, and so obtained great grace ; yet the general reception of the 
 regenerating and sanctifying power of the Spirit by all the converts 
 was a subsequent event. (Acts iv. 31.) 
 
 Gal. iii. 27, "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ 
 have put on Christ," has often been quoted as sustaining the opposite 
 view ; but it can only serve that pm-posc by being torn from its con- 
 nexion in the Epistle. The whole argument of the Apostle, of which 
 it is a part, appears to be this : " As those who are circumcised are 
 laid under an obligation to observe all the Jewish law, so those who 
 have received Christian baptism are laid under a similar obligation to 
 fulfil the conditions and seek the privileges of the Christian covenant." 
 " Put ye on," is a figurative expression variously used ; and even the 
 already baptized Romans are exhorted by St. Paul to "put on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom. xiii. 14.) — See also Appendix, Note(B). 
 
PROMISE TO PETER. 49 
 
 (Matt. xvi. 18J where it is used in its compreliensive 
 meaning; and next in Matt, xviii. 15-18, where it 
 has its more restricted sense. In the first passage our 
 Lord declares that He mil build His church upon the 
 Trerpa, " foundation-stone/' of apostolical doctrine ; 
 making the promise direct to Peter, as he was to be 
 the first preacher of that doctrine : and in order that 
 he might be quahfied for the work, the promise is 
 appended of his plenary inspiration, but couched in 
 the figure of the gift of keys, by wliich the kingdom 
 of heaven was to be opened, or its doors shut upon 
 any one ; that is, by which he was intrusted to dis- 
 close the terms on which sinful men were admitted 
 into the favour and pacific covenant of God, or cast 
 out from both. The church here is manifestly the 
 whole company of professing Christians, as it shall 
 exist by succession of persons from age to age ; and 
 the keys which the Apostle received were not the keys 
 of the church, but a binding and loosing authority 
 in expounding the terms of that spiritual admi- 
 nistration that Clirist carried on within it. In the 
 other place in the Gospel of St. Matthew the same 
 authority is confided to all the Apostles, thus leaving 
 Peter no higher position than that of prirmis inter 
 pares. 
 
 It should be clearly perceived that the Romanist 
 doctrine on the subject of the church is drawn from 
 assuming its identity with the kingdom of heaven, — 
 the theory we are now refuting : and so the doctrinal 
 deductions of this system are such as these, — that the 
 primacy of the Apostle Peter is the foundation of the 
 great Clu-istian incorporation; that to him directly, 
 and by him in some way to the incorporation itself, 
 
 E 
 
50 ROMANIST CONFUSION. 
 
 is coiiiided the gift of infallibilit}^ in promulgating 
 doctrine, exercising discipline, and devising means, 
 whether mild or forceful, of extension ; that the acts 
 of this incorporation are made as valid and spiritual 
 as though made by Christ in person; and that 
 reception into, or exclusion from, the Church of 
 Rome, or its dependent branches, is therefore the 
 same tiling as reception into, or exclusion from, the 
 kingdom of God. Now, supposing that our Lord 
 intended to inculcate tliis doctrine, — namely, that 
 the church in its corporate character should be the 
 kingdom of heaven, where not only Peter, but his 
 successors in the episcopate, should personally be 
 the vicegerents of Christ, and sources of law and 
 authority, — then the other doctrines — such as those 
 of apostolical succession in the episcopal line alone, 
 the conveyance of grace in that channel, sacramental 
 efficacy, baptismal regeneration, sacerdotalism, indul- 
 gences, and the like — all seem to flow from it by 
 natural consequence. If the body of the Cln^istian 
 church which consists of persons, or any part of it 
 which likewise consists of persons, be made infallible, 
 — as spiritual in the efficacy of its acts as though it 
 were all spirit, — then of course the Holy Ghost must 
 be in its ordinations, its baptisms, its eucharists, its 
 excommunications ; in fact, all its deeds on earth are 
 then ratified in heaven. Eomanism is fearfully con- 
 sistent with itself. 
 
 Nor is the case greatly altered by those who, 
 although not of the Roman communion, so far sympa- 
 thise with it as to restrict the work of the Holy Spirit, 
 in renewing and sanctifying, to an external church 
 organization, wliich rests upon a similar succession of 
 
ROMANIST AND HIGH CHURCH CONFUSION. 51 
 
 princely Bishops, linked originally to the Apostles. 
 No wonder that men of this sort look around 
 with such feverish anxiety to find CathoHc church 
 unity; for with them it is a matter of life and death. 
 "\Miatever system connects the judicial authority of 
 Christ absolutely with the functions of a body of 
 Christian professors, also makes that body at once, 
 as distinct from others, the subjects and administrators 
 of the Gospel on earth. The wind, then, cannot blow 
 where it listeth, but must move in one direction. 
 ]\Ien, then, can tell whence it cometh, and whither it 
 goeth, whether they hear the sound thereof, or not. 
 This is a most momentous point in our inquiry, ai^d 
 the entire character of Clu-istianity turns upon it. In 
 the case we are now supposing, tliis Christianity is not 
 a thing to be tested by inward and outward hoHness, 
 or the fi'uit of the Spirit ; opening out a sphere for 
 the free exercise of all the ennobled and regenerate 
 powers of the Imman soul, and thus raising a ministry, 
 and extending the knowledge and love of God wher- 
 ever faith, and zeal, and the call of God in His hAdng 
 kingdom, shall open the way. It becomes rather the 
 prison-house of mind and conscience, putting man in 
 the place of God. 
 
 But as to Holy Scripture, the question returns : — 
 Did our Lord intend to teach His Apostles that His 
 church should be such an incorporation ? The 
 answer is, — It is an utter — a blank impossibihty : 
 the entire strain of the Gospel contradicts it. The 
 kingdom of heaven of wliich the Apostle held the keys, 
 was, as we have seen, either the spiritual inheritance 
 of Gospel blessings, or the spiritual fellowship of those 
 who were favoured to enjoy it, — of the poor in spirit, 
 'e 2 
 
52 THE apostles' KEYS AND ABSOLUTION, 
 
 the childlike^ the contrite^ the humble, the sanctified 
 by faith in Christ Jesus ; and the Apostle^s binding 
 and loosing power was not over persons, but in 
 respect of things, (o iav Bi]arj<i' or, when they are all 
 spoken of. Matt, xviii. 15-18, oaa iav hrjaT^Te,) not 
 over " whomsoever," but " whatsoever ;" that is, doc- 
 trines, laws, determinations. That power had to do 
 directly with the kingdom, but with the church no 
 further than as the authority of that kingdom had to 
 determine the principles of its constitution and order. 
 With the Apostle, as conjoined with liis fellow 
 Apostles, the holding of it terminated, excepting so 
 far as others might apply without altering it : for, 
 when the Apostles died, then the Gospel dispensation 
 was founded; and in the fact that uninspired and 
 faUible men subsequently applied it, lay the certainty 
 of frequent mistake. 
 
 Connected \\dth this power, and flowing from it, 
 was likewise the collateral authority given to the 
 eleven by Christ in John xx. 23 : " Whosesoever sins 
 ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whose- 
 soever sins ye retain, they are retained." But this 
 must be taken as the power to declare authoritatively 
 on what terms God forgave guilty sinners, and not to 
 administer pardon or condemnation in their own per- 
 sons. So we are sure the Apostles understood it; 
 for they never undertook to absolve or condemn men 
 in the course of their personal ministry : they only 
 declared the Gospel in this respect. According to the 
 terms of their commission, the church was to be con- 
 stituted by preaching, teacliing the Gospel, and bap- 
 tizing : but the kingdom was to be opened only to 
 him who believed, as well as was baptized; and it 
 
AKTICHRISTIAN ERROR IN LIMINE. 53 
 
 was to be finally closed to him who believed not, 
 whether baptized or otherwise. 
 
 The church was to be builded on the Apostles^ 
 doctrine ; in carrpng on which work many mistakes 
 would imavoidably be made, and many improper per- 
 sons received. This was the human and formal part 
 of the constitution : but that more restricted fellow- 
 ship, consisting of those who were renewed by grace, 
 and intended to be admitted to perfect redemption 
 and glorification in heaven, was only attained to by an 
 entire and believing acceptance of those terms which 
 were propounded to men under the full inspiration of 
 the Holy Ghost, according to Clirist's engagement 
 and promise. 
 
 Yery little fruit results from arguing with Rome, 
 or with other High Church communions, on the 
 distinct dogmas of prelatical succession, sacerdotalism, 
 baptismal regeneration, eucharistical pardon, and the 
 like, when the grand fallacy is in limine, and Hes in 
 an assumption which confounds things that are in this 
 world essentially different, and wliich Clirist has so 
 often declared to be different. This scheme of -wilful 
 confusion lies at the foundation of the great apostasy, 
 wliich revealed itseK partially in the third, and plainly 
 appeared in the fourth, century, when a rehgion, ex 
 opere operato, of sacraments was too generally esta- 
 blished ; a system which, while it professed the name 
 of Christ, practically denied Him, by introducing a 
 human mediatorship into His place. And strange it 
 is that no less a man than Cyprian should be lured 
 into a theory of defence against the schismatics of his 
 day, which rested mainly on this view : and yet his 
 Tractate " De Unitate EcclesicB " is constructed en- 
 
54 
 
 tirely on the assumption of the church being one mth 
 the kingdom of heaven, and has tended more than 
 any other book of antiquity to deepen and strengthen 
 the current of anti-scriptural tradition. The great 
 Augustine, from liis o^ti deep inward light, saw tliis 
 tendency of things ; and hence his theory, whatever 
 otherwise might be its value, of the election of grace ; 
 and hence his controversy with the Donatists, who 
 fain would make their separated community the king- 
 dom of heaven ; and, most of all, hence his profound 
 and elaborate book, "Be Civitate Dei." They all 
 arose from a consciousness, more felt than expressed, 
 that no outward organization, not that even of the 
 catholic church, as he defined it, could embody and 
 represent all the true subjects of the Redeemer's grace. 
 Doubtless, the sealing of twelve thousand out of every 
 tribe in the professing Israel, in the Book of Revela- 
 tion, is the figurative setting forth of that act of 
 Christ, by which He acknowledges and puts His sign 
 on the cliildren of the kingdom, as standing apart 
 from that more general and diverse community in 
 which they are found and trained : and as the chrono- 
 logical order of the figuration would point to the be- 
 ginning of the fourth century, as the time when this 
 sacred restriction was observed, it appears all the 
 more probable that the recovery and emphatic reitera- 
 tion of the evangehcal doctrines by Augustine, whose 
 testimony more or less has been sustained ever since, 
 was in fact the setting forth of that restriction to the 
 living church."^ 
 
 Many advocates of that kind of formal unity which 
 
 * See 'Elliott' s " Hora Jpoca/yj)tica. Fourth Edition. 1852," 
 vol. i., pp. 243-233. 
 
PAUABLE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 55 
 
 thus involves the identification and confusion of two 
 distinct things, have reiterated, again and again, 
 our Lord's saying in His parable of the Good Shej)- 
 herd, recorded in the tenth chapter of St. John's Gos- 
 pel, as being on their side : " And other sheep I liave, 
 which are not of this fold : them also I must bring, 
 and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall be one 
 fold, and one Shepherd." (Verse 16.) But they have 
 either fallen into the amiable fault of relying exclu- 
 sively on our own English version ; or else, with less 
 candour, have ])resumed too much on the general 
 indisposition on the part of their readers or auditors 
 to consult any other version; for the distinction of 
 terms used by our Lord in the above passage is such 
 in the original as to overtlirow the argument which is 
 founded upon it. In the first part of the verse, where a 
 distinct community in a given locality is referred to, — 
 "And other sheep I have, which are not of this 
 FOLD,'' (the company of believing Jews,) — the word 
 is avXrj, which signifies generally " an enclosed 
 place," and here specifically of course " a sheep-fold ;" 
 but where, in the succeeding clause, the reference is 
 to the aggregation of the children of God, all notion 
 of limitation ab extra is discarded, and the word is 
 ttol/jlvt), "a flock ;" q. d., "There shall be one flock, 
 and one Shepherd." 
 
 Scripture evidence, indeed, is not wanting against 
 the points of Romanising error above specified ; and 
 history refuses to substantiate the theory whicli Iligli 
 Church writers would set up : but a serious and can- 
 did student of the Gospel must, apart from these 
 considerations, feel it to be an all-authoritative and 
 determining course with him, to ol^tain a just and 
 
56 THE TRUE SUCCESSION. 
 
 clear conviction of tlie nature of the economy under 
 wliicli he lives, and expects everlasting salvation. 
 That there has been, and is, however, a real succession, 
 from age to age, of true Ministers of Christ, irrespec- 
 tive of prelatical, episcopal, and other distinctions, 
 called and qualified to preach His word, and guide 
 His flock, — is not only a plain historical fact, but it 
 may be regarded doctrinally as connected with the 
 Scripture view of the kingdom of heaven : for the 
 permanence of Divine grace in the world, moving, as 
 in a channel, through the hearts of faithful men in all 
 ages, involves the presence and varied gifts of the 
 Holy Ghost ; and these again involve a repeated mi- 
 nisterial call, wherever Ministers are needed. It is 
 not that we deny a real spiritual succession, but only 
 that the prelatical or any strictly formal line defines it. 
 The church or churches of Christ must be consti- 
 tuted according to the inspired decisions of the 
 Apostles beyond question ; but it is not to be assumed 
 that these laws are uniformly and infallibly obeyed, 
 and that the spiritual subjects of Christ are exactly 
 represented in the outward eKKkriaia. The purity 
 and eificiency of the church will be in proportion to 
 the degree in which the kingdom of God bears sway 
 within, and its purposes are promoted by ecclesiastical 
 organization and discipline: but still the church of 
 Christ in the figure which our Lord uses in the pre- 
 sent passage is the aggregation of persons throughout 
 the world, who formally and sacramentally profess 
 the faith of His name : it is the outward building on 
 the rock of apostolical preacliing, where, however, 
 there are twelve foundation-stones, (Eev. xxi. 14,) and 
 not one only : it is not the spiritual administration 
 
THE KEYS ARE OF THE KINGDOM. 57 
 
 which is carried on within that building : it is the 
 city on the rock or hill of Zion, — not the Davidic 
 rule which sanctifies it.^ 
 
 * The Old-Testameut reference to the keys, as the symbol of au- 
 thority, in Isai. xxii. 20-25, appears not only to be the foundation of 
 all subsequent allusion in the New Testament, but contains itself one 
 of those wondi'ous analogies which are found so frequently to disclose 
 themselves to patient and reverential minds, — analogies which, from 
 the authority which quotes and acknowledges them, may be fairly re- 
 garded as coming under the typical department of revelation. Thus : 
 "And it shall come to pass in that day that I will call my servant 
 Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah : and I -wall clothe him with thy " 
 (Shebna's) "robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I vnU 
 commit thy government into his hand : and he shall be a father to 
 the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. And the 
 key of the house of David wiU I lay upon his shoulder ; so he shall 
 open, and none shall shut ; and he shall shut, and none shall open. 
 And I ^\ill fasten him as a nail in a sure place ; and he shall be for 
 a glorious throne to his father's house. And they shall hang upon 
 him all the glory of his father's house, the offspring and the issue, all 
 vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the 
 vessels of flagons. In that day, saith the Lord of Hosts, shaU the" 
 former (Shebna's) " nail that is fastened in the sm-e place be removed, 
 and be cut doAATi, and fall ; and the burden that was upon it shall 
 be cut off: for the Lord hath spoken it." 
 
 Here Hilkiah, the holder of the keys, is under Hezekiah the King, 
 just as Peter, representing the apostolate, is under Christ. As holder, 
 he has the ordering of all the sacred things ; his rule is mild and pa- 
 ternal; his appointment displaces that of the lofty and unfaithful 
 Shebna, just as the Apostles and their spiritual off'spring displaced the 
 Je\\-ish Rabbins. The keys and the kingdom, that is, the primary 
 authority, were the same in both cases, just as it was the same kingdom 
 of God, though in different form, which was once in the Je\^^sh 
 church, as is now in the Christian, according to Christ's owTi words 
 to the Jews, Matt. xxi. 43 : " The kingdom of God shall be taken from 
 you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." And 
 when Christ has fully entered upon His kingly glorj', and drawn 
 attention to Himself, as the supreme authority under which Apostles 
 and all are to act. He thus describes His own character and function : 
 " He that hath the key of David, He that opencth, and no man 
 shuttcth ; and shutteth, and no man openeth." (Rev. iii. 70 
 
§ IV. The other passage in St. Matthew clearly 
 refers to a different import of the term ; it runs thus : 
 "Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go 
 and tell him his fault between thee and liim alone : if 
 he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. 
 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one 
 or two more, that in the mouth of two or three mt- 
 nesses every word may be established. And if he 
 shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church : 
 but if he neglect to hear the church, let liim be unto 
 thee as an Heathen man and a publican. Yerily I 
 say unto you, Wliatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall 
 be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on 
 earth shall be loosed in heaven.''^ (Matt, xviii. 15-18.) 
 
 The term " church^' here does not signify, as in 
 the last passage, that great community, existing 
 tln*ough aU ages, which professes the Gospel, to which 
 no distinct function is assigned in Scripture. It 
 rather means the congregation, or minor and specific 
 society of Christians, wliich is organized in a particu- 
 lar place. Before, however, we note the full import 
 of this passage, it will be necessary to dispose of an 
 interpretation which is put upon it by some advocates 
 of congregational independency, as well as some theo- 
 logians of a very difl^erent school. 
 
 It is argued from this text, that not only does the 
 term iKKXrjcrla here signify the whole assembly or 
 congregation of believers, but that this congregation is 
 represented as judging and disposing of every case of 
 discipline that arises ^nthin the circle of its influence ; 
 and that its decisions, when deliberated and executed 
 in the name of Christ, are to be taken as ratified and 
 confirmed in heaven ; in other words, that the power 
 
59 
 
 of the keys, understood in its improper or acconuno- 
 dated sense of binding and loosing in discipKne, be- 
 longs to the whole community. The interpretation 
 so far differs from the Romanist, that it shifts the 
 potesfas BcaKpiTtKr), or "judging power," from the 
 Church CathoHc assembled in council, to the single 
 assembly, or ordinary w^orshipping congregation;"^ 
 making, in each case, the community to represent the 
 actual subjects and spiritual members of Clu-ist. Tor 
 our part, we equally repel a Congregational and a 
 Papal infallibility. 
 
 It must be first observed in answer, that there is a 
 foregoing improbability that the power here spoken of 
 should be understood to be given to the congregation, 
 inasmuch as, in the two other places where it is men- 
 tioned, it is expressly confided to the Apostles, as a 
 peculiar privilege, by the use of wliich they should be 
 
 * The accurate and learned George Lawson, Rector of More, (author 
 of " Politica Sacra et Civilis" London, 1689,) the late accomplished 
 Dr. Arnold, (Sermon xvi., vol. i., pp. 184, 185, London, 1845,) and 
 Archbishop "Whately, (" Kingdom of Christ Delineated," Essay ii., 
 sect. 7,) have all been misled, by their confusing of those premises 
 which are taken to lie in this and in coUatei'al passages. They 
 identify a given church, or union of particular churches, such as the 
 Church of England, with the kingdom of heaven ; and then make 
 the keys of the kingdom represent the power of ecclesiastical dis- 
 cipline ; given first to the Apostles, and then transmitted from the 
 Apostles to this Church of England, or whatever other church it 
 might be ; that is, to its whole communion, though only to be 
 exercised through the Pastors. To the whole communion, however, 
 it cannot, as expounded above, be given, except as through the Pas- 
 torate ; and to Pastors only in a secondary and accommodated sense. 
 Lawson would have but small thanks from democratic theorists and 
 Congregational AATiters, for putting the keys into the hands of the 
 whole assembly or erclesia, when that assembly is very possibly to 
 his apprehension a national church. 
 
60 "church'^ in matt, xviii. 18. 
 
 able to fulfil their apostolic responsibility. The plain 
 sense of those places — Matt. xvi. 19; John xx. 23 — 
 should therefore determine the sense of this, supposing 
 it to be doubtful. But we are not left to argue from 
 improbabilities; for, on referring to Mark's account 
 (chap. ix. 35, 36) of tliis very conversation, which 
 was introduced on our Lord's part by His taking a 
 child and placing him in the midst, and making liim 
 the sahent point of discourse, we find it is said, " And 
 He sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto 
 THEM,'' &c., thus restricting the teaching on the 
 cliild-like temper, and on the subjects which grew out 
 of it here, to the Apostles. "We wiUinglj acquiesce 
 in the reasonings of Dr. Davidson,^ and Dr. Ealph 
 Wardlaw,t by wliich they urge that the word 
 " church " here signifies, not the representatives, but 
 the whole aggregation of members; as also in the 
 candid comment of Campbell on this text, where he 
 takes the same view. But when the two former 
 would ward off all considerations, in interpretation of 
 the passage, wliich are drawn from any allusion it 
 might make to the Jemsh synagogue then existing, 
 or from any analogy in wliich the church in question 
 might stand to that institution, in order thereby to 
 harmonise their arbitrary conclusion, that the very 
 form of church discipline is here pointed out, and the 
 Congregational dictum is rectoral and final ; then we 
 must interpose our finn protest and objection. 
 
 * " Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament unfolded." (Con- 
 gregational Lecture.) London, 1848. 
 
 t " Congregational Independency, as distinguished fi'om Presby- 
 terianism and Episcopacy, the Church Polity of the New Testament." 
 Glasgow, 1848. 
 
61 
 
 That there is the very highest probability that the 
 organization of the Christian church would be formed 
 on the model of the s^aiagogue, is evident from the 
 fact, that Clirist trained His Apostles and disciples to 
 the use of the synagogue worship ; (Matt. xii. 9, et al. 
 freq^;) that, after His death, they continued the prac- 
 tice, and defended themselves before that liigh court 
 of appeal which all the synagogues acknowledged; 
 (Acts iv. 7 ;) that in Large cities they had not, for 
 many years, any other accessible congregations than 
 the Jews and devout Gentiles whom they might find 
 in these places of worship ; (Acts xvii. 2 ;) that their 
 first converts were drawn from thence : (Acts viii. 8, 
 &c. :) and thus, as Archbishop AA^iately says,^ " it 
 appears higlily probable, — I might say, morally cer- 
 tain, — tliat [the spiagogue] was brought — the whole 
 or the chief part of it — to embrace the Gospel. The 
 Apostles did not, then, so much form a Cliristian 
 church (or congregation, ecclesia) as make an existing 
 congregation Cliristian, by introducing the Christian 
 sacraments and worsliip, and establishing whatever 
 regulations were necessary for the newly adopted 
 faith ; leaving the machinery (if I may so speak) of 
 govermnent unchanged; the Eulers of synagogues, 
 Elders, and other officers, (whether spiritual or ecclesi- 
 astical, or both,) being already provided in the 
 existing institutions/^ It must be observed, also, 
 that all tliis was in perfect harmony with that Divine 
 economy by which Hebrew circumcision was changed 
 into baptism or the Treptro/jbr) tov Xpiarov, (Col. 
 
 * " Kingdom of Christ Delineated," p. 88. Fifth Edition. Lon- 
 don, 1851 
 
62 CHURCH AROSE FROM THE SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 ii. 11,) and the paschal supper, likewise, into the 
 Supper of the Lord ; besides minor analogies, which 
 we cannot here trace. And such is the character 
 ever of the Divine procediu-e ; gentle and noiseless in 
 transition, never violently interrupting an established 
 order, but leading on, by almost imperceptible links 
 of progress, the direct issues of Clirist^s remedial 
 work unto its final consummation.^ 
 
 * Dr. Davidson seeks to weaken the evidence in favour of the fact 
 that the Jewash sjniagogue v^'as the platform of the Christian churches, 
 by referring to the diiferences of opinion between learned men, as, for 
 instance, between Vitringa and Lightfoot, as to what "particular office- 
 bearers in the Jewdsh assembly represented the Christian office-bearers 
 in the times of the Apostles, and the age immediately succeeding ; 
 Lightfoot comparing the Chazzan wth the Bishop or Overseer, and 
 identifying the same with the SchUach Tsibbur, or " Angel of the 
 church ;" and Vitringa making him to be the type of the diaKovos, or 
 " Deacon : " the former, again, regarding the Parnasim, or " Pastors," 
 as having charge of the poor ; while the Dutch divine believed the 
 designation to be general and characteristic, rather than official, (ex- 
 cepting the modern Parnasim, whit;h fonned a sort of lay-council,) 
 signiljnng learned men who were able to feed and govern. Not only, 
 however, is this last difference perfectly reconcilable ; " almoner " 
 being, as Dr. Campbell shows in his "Lectures on Ecclesiastical 
 History," the accidental function of the Pastor, even fi'om the 
 Apostles' times ; but the main feature of the s}Tiagogue regimen is 
 not at all affected by these discrepancies, namely, the unquestionable 
 administration of its affairs by a council of teaching and guiding 
 persons, however they might be appointed, and whatever share the 
 people might have in their appointment. Nor if later Jewish au- 
 thorities, such as Maimonides, refer to institutions and regulations in 
 the synagogue which may possibly (the probability is small, consider- 
 ing the uniform tone of the Jewish temper against Christianity) 
 have been copied from the Christian church, is the ai'gument any 
 way affected ; as aU the main points of agreement are the most ancient, 
 and those that come out in the Scripture history. Por om- present pur- 
 pose it is enough to know that excommunication from the synagogue 
 was not by popular vote, but by the Council of Elders. So the blind 
 man in John ix. was expelled by the Pharisaic llulers, the pseudo- 
 
CHURCH AROSE FROM THE SYNAGOGUE. 63 
 
 It must be evident that our Lord's disciples must have 
 formed their idea of a church from the Jewish notion 
 attached to that term, accordingly as it implied (in 
 the LXX.) a pohty, or, more ordinarily, a congre- 
 gation ; ujiless their Master had guarded and corrected 
 it by some explanation or comment. There is nothing, 
 however, of this kind ; the natural tone of their con- 
 ceptions is not interfered with : and if He intended 
 to refer the injured and complaining person to a 
 church then existing, there was no other known than 
 the synagogue, the decisions of wdiicli were liable to 
 be re\dewed by the great council. He could not refer 
 to the band of His present disciples as being the church: 
 for He was their sole Euler and Head, and Himself 
 settled all their disputes. But if He alluded — which, 
 the context shows, is the only true understanding of 
 
 shepherds or hirelings with whom our Lord, the Good Shepherd, con- 
 trasted Himself : yet He did not impugn their official authority ; and 
 Vitringa is not contradicted in saying, after he has gone through the 
 details of the argument, and treated of the jurisdiction of the city 
 synagogue, " Smnma est, academiarnm synagogarumque redores 
 viros literatos, simul constituentes consesmm aliquem, aut sgnedriion 
 ecclesiasticum, cujus tnembra dicta fuerunt Magistri, Preshgten, 
 Pastores, Doctores, summam apnd Judaos omni tempore habuisse 
 potestateni excommunicandi.^" — lie vetere Sgnag., lib. iii., pars i., 
 cap. 9. "The sum of all is this, — that learned men, rulers of syna- 
 gogues and schools, at the same time constituting a sort of ecclesi- 
 astical consistory or sanhedrim, of which the members were called 
 Masters, Elders, Pastors, Doctors, had in all times among the Jews 
 chief power in excommunicating." So Augustine: " Sgnagoga — 
 nurus ecclesice" — Eiiar. in Psal. xliv., sect. 12. This feature of 
 Je\nsh pohty has been handed down unimpaired to modem times : 
 for the chief Rabbi in every sjmagogue has still the unshared respon- 
 sibility of administering chm'ch censures, even excommunication, 
 neither Chazzan nor lay-P^rnas being able to prevent or alter the 
 sentence. See also Appendix, Note (C). 
 
64 CHUECH AEOSE FROM THE SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 the case — to His churchy or any of His churches, as 
 hereafter to be constituted after the Holy Ghost 
 should be given ; then there is nothing here to deter- 
 mine what kind of constitution that should be, — 
 whether the congregation should include Bishops, after 
 the higher prelatical view, or merely Elders for its 
 spiritual office-bearers, after the Presbyterian notion ; 
 whether discipline should proceed according to the 
 forms of one regimen or the other. In fact, notliing 
 here is stated by Christ on the subject of church- 
 discipline at all; and it could only be conceived of 
 by the disciples according to the analogies furnished 
 by their o^\ti institutions. 
 
 Tliis discipline had nothing to do with the present 
 subject. "TeU it to the church,^^ said our Lord; 
 " and if he will not hear the church, let him be to 
 thee " (not necessarily and now to the church) " as an 
 Heathen man and a publican." The direction of our 
 Lord refers to the church, so far as it takes the case 
 out of the hand of the complainer, when liis brother 
 is unmoved and impenitent. There is no trial of 
 guilt impHed, — for tliis is never brought into ques- 
 tion, — but simply the committal of an unsuccessful 
 private attempt to remove evil and scandal into the 
 hands of the Christian society to which the parties 
 belong, which society was to be so constituted as to 
 deal with a matter of this kind, even to the possible 
 extent of excommunicating the unreconciled party, — 
 — though this is not stated here : and, without 
 defining by anticipation its form of regimen, in order 
 to show what should be the authority on which its 
 decisions should rest. He adds the clause which pro- 
 mises to the Apostles (not the church) the binding 
 
THE KEYS ARE REVELATION OPPOSED TO TRADITION. 65 
 
 and loosing power. "Tell it to the church/^ does 
 not mean, " Tell it to the people alone/' any more 
 than it means, " Tell it to the Ministers alone -" nor 
 does it impugn the doctrine which we shall find the 
 Xew Testament elsewhere teaches, — that there is a 
 special obligation and responsibility attaching to the 
 latter ; nor does it discredit the notion, whatever 
 otherwise may be its value, that the congregation 
 might be so large that, while on great and solemn 
 occasions it might meet in one place, yet, for teaching 
 and disciplinary fimctions, it might be distributed into 
 smaller assemblies, thus requiring the acts of those 
 smaller assemblies to be confirmed by the whole ; but 
 that, in order that an unerring authority may be pro- 
 vided, to which aU may appeal, the Apostles themselves 
 shall be empowered by their plenary inspiration in 
 revealing doctrine, and enacting rules for making that 
 doctrine practical, to furnish, in conjunction with their 
 Master, the statute-law of the kingdom of heaven, by 
 which aU churches shoidd be governed. The Jewish 
 Eabbins assumed the keys, which were the scriptural 
 sjTiibol of power, and applied it to their traditional 
 interpretations and dicta without authority, so as 
 grievously to darken and oppress the consciences of 
 men ; practically they took away " the key of know- 
 ledge '." but here Christ's disciples are assured that 
 the doctrines of the apostles shall have the authentica- 
 tion and stamp of primal authority, that all matters 
 referring to peace and salvation might not stand in the 
 wisdom of men, but in the power of God ; so that, 
 while our Lord casts a glance upon Ilis future 
 church, the transition of His discourse confirms reve- 
 
 F 
 
66 ' PUEITY THE CHIEF LESSON. 
 
 LATiON, as opposed to, and distinct from, unin- 
 spired TRADITION. 
 
 § Y. At the same time, the whole doctrinal lesson 
 is a lesson on the purity and spirituality which our 
 Lord required to be observed by His disciples in their 
 fellowship with each other through all the ages of 
 time. According to His teaching in the context, sin 
 is so great an evil, that he who furnishes an occasion 
 of it, even to a child, so as to endanger that child^s 
 salvation, had much better be placed in circumstances 
 to suffer temporal death, as, for instance, to be 
 drowned in the sea; for even angels, who behold 
 the face of God in heaven, are deeply concerned in 
 the salvation and purity of httle ones, whether child- 
 ren in age, or children in grace ; and therefore, in His 
 church about to rise in the world, sin is so to be 
 dreaded as a fearful and increasing evil, as well as 
 opposed to the Divine perfections, that, when it rises 
 in an individual bosom, it must, if possible, be 
 quenched in the spark, and prevented from spread- 
 ing further; and the person most concerned is 
 exhorted, with child-like candour, to lay open his 
 thoughts to the sinning brother, and thus seek hi^ 
 purity and restoration to confidence by the method 
 which is least likely to exasperate chafed affections, 
 and most calculated to vindicate truth as associated 
 with love. An incorporation of human beings acting 
 continually on these principles, would little need an 
 elaborate legislative system; yet, as the church had 
 to be composed of erring and imperfect men, its Law- 
 giver left the detail of minor rules in the hands of 
 His Apostles, making tliem His plenipotentiaries in 
 this matter ; in conformity with which rules, according 
 
THE SONS OF ZEBEDEE. 67 
 
 to the best of its judgment, but not infallibly, He left 
 each assembly to act. 
 
 The intention, then, of our Lord's reference to the 
 church in the two passages of the Gospel according to 
 St. Matthew, is to point out its foundation on apostoli- 
 cal preaching, and its spirituality and purity, as distin- 
 guished from secular conventions. A member of any 
 mere body politic would spurn this searching converse, 
 and demand an open charge and evidence; but a 
 member of Clirist is, as a first resort, enjoined both 
 to allow and seek it. 
 
 § VI. The next references of the sacred narrative to 
 our Lord's teaching respecting the church, have respect 
 to its order. In Matt. xx. 20-28 we find the con- 
 troversy with James and John. 
 
 Here the mother of Zebedee's children comes to 
 our Lord with the request that her two sons may 
 have places of power and authority in His coming 
 kingdom ; a request to which the sons were likewise 
 parties, as is evident from St. Mark's account of the 
 same transaction, and from the indignation of the ten 
 against them; (x. 35-45;) clearly showing that 
 the disciples had not understood our Lord to assert, 
 in the last-mentioned discourse, that all His people 
 hereafter in administrative acts were to be joined in a 
 perfectly equal position. After referring to the bap- 
 tism of sorrow and cup of trembling which He and 
 His followers must needs receive in founding that 
 kingdom, Clirist tells them thus respecting the place 
 of authority w^hich they aspired after, (leaving out 
 the italics as they stand in our Bibles, and obscure 
 the sense,) " It is not mine to give, but for whom it 
 is prepared of my Father," — that is. There shall be 
 F 2 
 
68 THE SONS OF ZEBEDEE. 
 
 persons holding a place to which deference is due; 
 but the appointment shall take place under the joint 
 administration of the Tather and Son^ and in especial 
 harmony with that of the Father. After asserting 
 that there should he government in His church. He 
 proceeds to tell how the right to govern should arise, 
 and how particular individuals should be invested with 
 it. " Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exer- 
 cise dominion over them, and they that are great exer- 
 cise authority upon them. But it shall not be so 
 among you : but whosoever will be great among you, 
 let him be your minister ; and whosoever will be chief 
 among you, let him be your servant : even as the Son 
 of man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister, and to give His Hfe a ransom for many.""^ 
 
 The compound verb Karaicvpieixo, "to exercise 
 dominion,^^ is sometimes taken intensively to "signify 
 a very harsh and oppressive rule ; and those who 
 would make the sense of the passage turn simply 
 upon this emphatic intenseness, would lay open our 
 Lord^s words to this inference, — that men might rule 
 in the church as do Gentile Kings or Magistrates, 
 provided that their government were not unduly 
 rigorous. But St. Luke, (xxii. 25,) in relating the 
 same sentiment as uttered by Christ at another time, 
 uses the verb in its simple form Kvpievw, and thus 
 takes away the argument drawn from the use of the 
 intensive preposition. The meaning is better gathered 
 from the scope of the conversation. Zebedee^s child- 
 ren evidently entertained the notion, that the kingdom 
 of the Messiah, however it might prove a purer institute 
 than the Jewish commonwealth, should nevertheless 
 be embodied in the form of a qivil government over 
 
PETER S MONITION. 69 
 
 the Jewisli nation, and, tlirough that nation, over the 
 world. 
 
 Our Lord opposed tliis notion by showing, that 
 while Gentile rulers based their authorit}^ upon ex- 
 ternal position, and were thus dp')(ovT€<i and fieyaXot, 
 " Princes and great ones,^' — a position usually then 
 sustained by hereditary prescription and military force, 
 — the overseers of His flock should gain their autho- 
 rity and position by moral and spiritual character, 
 formed in a course of disinterested labour. St. Peter, 
 who was present at this conversation, introduces the 
 subject vriili the very expression quoted above into liis 
 Pirst Epistle, Avritten towards the close of life, saying 
 to the Christian Elders, '' Peed the flock of God which 
 is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by 
 constraint, but willingly ; not for filthy lucre, but of a 
 ready mind ; neither as being lords ^^ (exercising lord- 
 ship) ^''over God^s heritage, but being ensamples to 
 the flock.'' (1 Peter v. 2, 3.) The words of the Master 
 and of the Apostle mutually explain each other. It 
 is not spiritual rule wliich Peter forbids, because the 
 word TTOifMavare implies that very kind of oversight 
 and constraint ; and this kind of eminence associa- 
 ting no outward grandeur with it, but only labour, 
 he finds it needful to urge that it may be willingly 
 taken, possibly as a trial to be submitted to for 
 Clirist's sake. It is Getitile rule and authority — 
 that which rests on external appliances, wliich has 
 no respect to the moral character and influence 
 either of the person exercising it, or of the persons 
 over whom it is exercised — which he disallows : 
 and as among the Jews the chief men in social 
 and civil respects had often been made office- 
 
70 INFLUENCE TO BE WON. 
 
 bearers in tlie s}Tiagogues,*^ much to the debase- 
 ment of religion itself^ and seeing that, as the Gos- 
 pel advanced in the world, the Christian church 
 would be liable to the same hurt of its spirituality, 
 he uttered this warning, — a warning the wisdom 
 of which history has justified, — and admonished the 
 lowly and spiritual Elders that they should not 
 imitate nor affect the secular Magistrate, losing the 
 persuasiveness of the shepherd in the imperious 
 bearing of the civil ruler. 
 
 The contrast in both these places is not, then, 
 precisely between the harsh and the mild, — for, as it 
 is said in St. Luke, even the worldly Sovereigns were 
 called benefactors, (Luke xxii. 25,) such as Ptolemy 
 Soter, Ptolemy Euergetes, — but between the secular 
 and the sacred ; between appeahng to the fears wliich 
 men feel as to temporal loss or pain, and deahng with 
 their spiritual convictions and perceptions. Tlie 
 whole lesson is here, as elsewhere, that the oversight 
 of Christ^ s church is not conformed, in spirit, form, 
 or end, to the civil estabHshments of the world, but 
 rather founded upon the spiritual relations which sub- 
 sist mutually between the members of the kingdom 
 and its Head. " Wliosoever,"^ said Christ, " will be 
 great among you, let him be your " hicLKovo^;, " minis- 
 ter ; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him 
 be your " Bov\o(i, " servant," or, as St. Mark expresses 
 it, " servant of all." The unappropriated sense of 
 hicLKovof; in the New Testament will be, " one who 
 waits upon others," whatever may be the quality of 
 his actions ; while BovXo^: rather indicates " one who 
 performs laborious functions for others." And here 
 
 * See Note (D), Appendix. 
 
INFLUENCE TO BE WON. 71 
 
 the Cliristian ruler answers both conditions. And still 
 further to show the character of that ministration and 
 service, Christ refers to His own conduct, as its true 
 exponent archetype, and adds, " Even as the Son of 
 Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, 
 and to give His life a ransom for many." The teachers 
 and guides of His church are here " Ministers " in 
 the same sense in which He is Minister Himself. He 
 lives, labours, and dies for it, and thence derives His 
 unquestionable right to govern it. His Ministers 
 (for they are such by following Him) obtain their 
 position in the same way, so far as in their measure 
 they can ; that is, by labour, self-denial, and suffering 
 in behaK of the souls whom He came to save. They 
 are not set over the flock by the flock itself, any fur- 
 ther than the latter may recognise their call : they are 
 raised by the Supreme Ruler, through various grades 
 of testing and trial, to represent Him. 
 
 " Let no one among you," our Lord in substance 
 commands, ^^ presume to inflict temporal penalty or 
 pain, or in any way assume the magisterial office ; the 
 rule of the nations is no example for you : but let him 
 who undergoes wasting labour, and suffers odium and 
 privation, for the purpose of saving men from eternal 
 death, and edifying them in faith and holiness, be 
 deferred to and obeyed." And the evangelical history 
 shows that the most venerated men in the primitive 
 days of the church who contributed to its establish- 
 ment and extension, Paul, Peter, John, Silas, Timo- 
 thy, Titus, Epapliras, and others, aU rose to influence 
 and a commanding position through the lowly path 
 of self-denial, toil, and prayer. As regards several of 
 them, it is on record that, while they disowned all 
 
72 WARNING ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 
 
 secular and Gentile lordship, smiting none, o])pressing 
 none, they winked at no ini([nity, and allowed no 
 obstinate ollender to remain in eonnnnnion with the 
 church. " The wisdom that is from above is first 
 pure, then peaceable." (James iii. 17.) 
 
 Another suggestive and germinant tc^xt on this sub- 
 ject is that which occurs in the long discourse uttered 
 by our Lord upon the Mount of Olives, in wdiich 
 the parables of the Ten Virgins and of the Talents are 
 included : " Who then is a faithful and wise servant, 
 Avhom liis lord hath made ruler over his houseliold, to 
 give them meat in due season ? Blessed is that servant, 
 whom his lord \\\\qi\ he cometh shall tind so doinc?. 
 Verily I say unto you. That he shall make him ruler 
 over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say 
 in his heart, ^ly lord delayeth his coming ; and shall 
 begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and 
 drink with the drunken ; the lord of that servant shall 
 come in a day when he looketli not for him, and in 
 an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him 
 asunder, and appoint him his portion with the h}^o- 
 crites : there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.''' 
 (Matt. xxiv. 45-51.) 
 
 The word SovXo^, " servant," in this text is repre- 
 sented in Luke by oIkovojjlo^, "steward;" (Luke xii. 
 42 ;) and here again the language of Christ is the key 
 to unlock the meaning of the Apostles, especially 
 when St. Paul says, " Let a man so accoiuit of us, as 
 of the Ministers of Christ, and " olKovofiov;, " stew- 
 ards of the mysteries of God. It is required in stew- 
 ards, that a man be found faitliful." (1 Cor. iv. 1, 3.) 
 " A Bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God/^ 
 (Titus i. 7.) 
 
WAUNIXG TO STEWARDS. 73 
 
 The wliolo cast of this discourse — which was pri- 
 vatdy given to the Apostles, (compare Matt. xxiv. 3; 
 Mark xiii. 3,) and therefore chiefly coricerntui them, 
 however legitimate may be its application to all (Jhris- 
 tians, as a monition to fidelity and watchfulness — 
 shows that it is to be regarded as a warning from the 
 Chief Shepherd to the under-shepherds, summoning 
 them to firlelity and preparation against the unknown 
 hour of J lis coming. The virgins^ lamps represent 
 ministerial light and lustre, as it may be failing or 
 sustained and fjuenchless, according as th(;y are borne 
 by wise or foolish; and the "faithful over a f(iW 
 things " are to be rulers over many. When we come 
 to the present place, the occupant of the position of 
 trust is "a servant," or "steward," though a faithful 
 and wise one : as such, he must answer to his Master 
 in respect of all things confided to his care : yet, 
 though a servant in relation to Christ, he is over the 
 household, and ov(;r other servants who are not stew- 
 ards. Wi^ is placed over by the supreme authority ; 
 and therefore the place is not to be struggled for, but 
 submissively taken. All smiting, — that is, carnal and 
 Gentile viol(;ric(i, such as the secular arm inflicts, — 
 and all collusion with disorder and sin, while wrapt in 
 carnal security, are threatened with terrible punishment. 
 
 Against the doctrine involved here, some have 
 attempted to quote the direction of our Lord in Matt, 
 xxiii. 8 : " Be not ye called Rabbi : for one is your 
 Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." But, 
 except to a person who takes a very superficial and 
 isolated view, it will soon be seen to stand in p(;rfect 
 harmony with it. Christ is here rebuking the Scribes 
 and Pharisees for assuming titles of teaching autho- 
 
74 TRUE AND FALSE EQUALITY. 
 
 rity, and warns the disciples from adopting tliis 
 practice, on the ground that He is the sole authorita- 
 tive Teacher, — the Master of the household in fact, 
 to whom the stewards and all others must be subject. 
 It would be absurd to suppose that our Lord had in 
 His eye the private members of His church, when He 
 said, "Be not ye called Eabbi/'' for this title was 
 used to distinguish a class of men who bound or 
 ruled others in all matters of conscience by those 
 wretched traditions of theirs which they set up above 
 the word of God. He rather enjoined His servants 
 to remember, that it was their function to administer 
 the WORD of ANOTHER; and that in tliis particular 
 they were all equal to each other, as bretlu-en, what- 
 ever subordination of an economical kind they might 
 observe. It is further added, " And caU no man your 
 father upon the earth : for one is your Eather who is 
 in heaven:" that is. Call no man "father" in the 
 sense of ascribing to him such a teaching and im- 
 posing authority as is an invasion of the rights of the 
 Supreme. Christian Ministers may be brethren, and 
 yet acknowledge a mutual subordination in respect of 
 each other. Christian persons may recognise those 
 who are over them in the Lord, and yet know only a 
 Supreme Master in heaven; just as they may acknow- 
 ledge their eartlily parent, and call him " father," and 
 yet, with reference to Him to whom primal and para- 
 mount obedience is due, may confess to have only one 
 Father, " the Pather of spirits." None can suppose 
 that our Lord forbids the use of this title to one who 
 is the human author of our being ; and therefore it is 
 equally impossible that He should forbid the name 
 and position of teacher and guide to those who, in 
 
THE GREAT COMMISSION. 75 
 
 subjection to Himself, give meat unto and provide for 
 His liouseliold. These words have been said to form 
 the palladimn of Presb}i:er3^, viewed as contrasted with 
 Episcopacy and CongregationaKsm : but it remains to 
 be proved how they necessarily include either the 
 juxta-position of bretliren in the pastoral office on the 
 one hand^ or exclude the idea of a first or chief on the 
 other. Let no meaning be put upon the words of the 
 Saviour, over and above what they will bear ; but this 
 they must be held to declare, — that is, when the 
 teaching of all the places considered in this section is 
 regarded in its totality, — that His household is com- 
 posed of persons in various positions ; some to rule, 
 and some to be ruled ; some to lead, and some to be 
 led; some to teach, and some to be taught; that 
 those who take the eminent place must deserve it, and 
 be qualified for it by character and service ; and that 
 therefore the only proper form of Christianity in the 
 world is one of spiritual order. However men might 
 act in future ages with regard to the church, these 
 were the principles recognised in the kingdom of God. 
 § YII. The last text to be quoted, as involving a fun- 
 damental provision or rule of Christ^s church, is that 
 where the great evangelical commission is given to the 
 Apostles. From the retirement of Bethany we hear 
 these words: '^^All power is given unto me in 
 heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach" 
 (ixaOrirevaare, ^'make disciples of") "all nations, 
 baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to observe 
 all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and, 
 lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
 world. Amen." (Matt, xxviii. 18-20.) 
 
76 THE GEEAT COMMISSION. 
 
 It must be here observed^ that this commandment 
 is not given, as many Congregational writers assume, 
 to the whole body of the disciples, — the church ; but 
 distinctively to the Apostles. The commission ap- 
 pears to have been published twice : first on " the 
 mountain in Galilee where Jesus had appointed/' 
 (Matt, xxviii. 16,) where it is stated, that it was to 
 "the eleven disciples"'' that " Jesus came and spake;" 
 and then where the narrative records that He led them 
 out as far as Bethany; (Luke xxiv. 50;) in which 
 place, likewise, it is of " the eleven '' alone that this is 
 asserted; and to them the command w^as finally 
 uttered, " Go ye [Apostles] into all the world, and 
 preach the Gospel to every creature,''" &c. ; for the 
 Evangelist Mark says, " After the Lord had spoken 
 unto them. He was received up into heaven.''" (Mark 
 xvi. 15-19.) It is highly probable, indeed, that the 
 five hundred brethren mentioned by St. Paul (1 Cor. 
 XV. 6) saw our Lord during some hour on the occa- 
 sion of His visit to the mountain in Galilee ; for it is 
 difiicult to fix upon any other period, as equally likely 
 to afford the opportunity : but to conclude at once 
 that they were blended with the Apostles in receiving 
 these special last commands of Christ, is notoriously 
 arbitrary, and opposed to fairly- collated views of the 
 sacred history. In vain do writers give loose to the 
 reins of imagination, and swell the amount of our 
 Lord's auditors, and gather them around His person 
 throughout the whole period of the forty days inter- 
 vening between His resurrection and ascension : St. 
 Paul gives most emphatically and minutely, as revealed 
 to liim, the whole order of the events : '' I delivered 
 unto you first of all that which I also received, how 
 
GIVEN TO THE APOSTLES DISTINCTIVELY. 77 
 
 that Christ died for our sins according to the Scrip- 
 tures ; and that lie was buried, and that He rose again 
 the third day according to the Scriptures : and that He 
 was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve : after that. He 
 was seen of above five hundred brethren at once ; of 
 whom the greater part remain unto this present, but 
 some are fallen asleep. Aftee that, He was seen of 
 James ; then of all the Apostles. And last of aU 
 He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due 
 time.'^ (1 Cor. xv. 3-8.) Thus the audience of 
 Christ wdth the Apostles, first and last, is distinctly 
 marked, as being different from His audience with the 
 greater body of disciples : and the two occasions of 
 seeing the Apostles distinctively were the very occa- 
 sions of srivuify twice over the charge. 
 
 The commission was given unto men who had been 
 taught and trained in reference to it, — trained as pri- 
 vate Cliristians could not be. Appended to it was the 
 assurance, that Cluisf s presence should be vouchsafed 
 to them in all ages, even to the end, — a promise 
 which, of necessity, had respect unto all persons who 
 should succeed to their labours and responsibilities, 
 inasmuch as the Apostles themselves were not to be 
 exempt from death, the common lot of man. And 
 the presence itself must be understood to be a pecu- 
 har nearness and influence of Christ, over and above 
 that common pacific presence of His, which is the lot 
 of every believer : for, as our Lord had already ex- 
 plained, that He would take up His abode with every 
 one who kept His commandments, (John xiv. 21-24,) 
 any manifestation of His presence beyond this could 
 only be regarded as special support, granted to sus- 
 tain with due fidelity a special charge. It may, 
 
78 LINKS Christ's ministry to that of his servants. 
 
 indeed, be inferred, that the promise involves the 
 assurance that Christ will be with His whole church, 
 in such respects as aU its members should need. He 
 could not be so nigh the Pastors without being nigh 
 the flock as well : and such a view harmonises with 
 Bishop Pearson^s appHcation of the passage in respect 
 of the church's unity ; in which he is joined by one or 
 two ancient interpreters. But, let it be observed, tliis is 
 mere inference, — the inference of a truth which Scrip- 
 ture elsewhere enunciates fuUy : it is not the prime 
 matter declared : that prime matter rather is, that 
 Christ is in a peculiar sense present with those who in 
 all ages are called to exercise the blended functions 
 of the evangelistic and pastoral care. Strengthened 
 by such a promise, and authorised by such a command- 
 ment, the Apostles went forth with the conviction that, 
 whatever deeds of holiness and love were, and ought 
 to be, done by other Christians, tliis was their work, 
 the work of their Hfe-time, and the work they had to 
 transmit to others, — the raising up and extending the 
 kingdom of Christ. 
 
 This is the link by means of which the personal 
 ministry of Christ was to become connected with the 
 work of practical Christianity tln-oughout the world, 
 and through all its future ages. A little society, after 
 having been called together and made holy, was not 
 sent out into the world to take its chance as to what 
 Teachers and Preachers it should train, or whether, 
 indeed, it should train any; as to what evangelical 
 enterprises it should attempt, if, indeed, it were sure 
 that, in continuance, it would attempt enterprises at 
 aU: but the Lord Jesus charged Himself with the 
 work of providing, through the Holy Spirit's agency, 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LAWS THUS DECLARED. 79 
 
 a succession of evangelizing and pastoral Teachers, 
 whose work it should be, not merely to preserve and 
 edify little communities, still less aggrandise them, 
 but tlirough innumerable trials and perils to bring 
 the world to God. Every single church of persons 
 baptized and taught is to be fostered and built up 
 in holiness ; yet so that it may be another advanced 
 post against the enemy, out of which the Lord may 
 select other leaders, in multiplying order, to bear 
 upon the general issue. Because, under the Gospel, 
 some men are divinely visited with a special constraint 
 to preach the word, and are endowed with gifts to 
 rule Christ^ s church, and are conscious of a mani- 
 fested presence to them of the Saviour, which is super- 
 added to their common Christian attainments, firing 
 them with zeal, nerving them with fortitude, and melt- 
 ing them mth love to all mankind ; the instruments of 
 this great work are provided. Men so visited and 
 summoned, when their summons is tested and con- 
 firmed, are answerable for its fulfilment ; and God^s 
 people are answerable for their sustentation. To set 
 up a church here and there, is not the final object of 
 good men in this life ; it is rather, by means of 
 churches which }deld a powerful ministry, to reduce 
 the world to the obedience of faith. (Rom. xvi. 26.) 
 And this is the law of expansion. 
 
 Reviewing these four places of St. Matthew^s Gos- 
 pel, it seems most clear, that Christ lays down to 
 us the fundamental laws, or principles, of purity, 
 SPIRITUALITY, ORDER, and EXPANSION. In various 
 other places, too, and by impHcation in these, the law 
 of peace, as founded on the authority and design of 
 the Prince of Peace, is no less declared. These were 
 
80 FUNDAMENTAL LAWS THUS DECLARED. 
 
 the primary considerations vouchsafed beforehand, 
 that the Apostles might fall back upon them in framing 
 His church, and devising minor and special precepts 
 for its guidance. 
 
 Another law — ^using the word in a somewhat different 
 sense, and meaning thereby the active principle of the 
 regenerate nature, '^ the law of the Spirit of life in 
 Christ Jesus '' — was to be given when the Holy Ghost 
 was given : and this is anticipated all the way. The 
 principles just laid do\\Ti are too holy, too remote 
 from the maxims and practical considerations of 
 worldly and mere political theorists, to find a mo- 
 ment's favour; and hence they are propounded to those 
 who either are, or shall be, '^ new creatures in Christ 
 Jesus /' whose sympathy with the Saviour, and His 
 ultimate object in the world, is so complete, that 
 they lose all narrow notions of what is simply due 
 to themselves, in absorbing desire to be ready for all 
 His good, and perfect, and acceptable will. 
 
 Christ here speaks as Supreme Master and Teacher. 
 The souls of the Apostles were to be filled with these 
 expansive and germinant precepts, that, when the 
 Holy Ghost should be given, they might not only take 
 the form of authoritative truth, but merge themselves 
 in the Spirit's fire, as elements of the hfe which He 
 produces \ insomuch that it should be as impossible for 
 believers not to know, acknowledge, and obey them, as 
 it would be not to watch, and pray, and delight in 
 God. 
 
 And now let us show how these foundation- 
 statutes of Christ's kingdom have been observed in 
 the building up of the Wesleyan commimion. And 
 first as to the law oi piirifi/, or the required separation 
 
HOW ACKNOWLEDGED IN THE WESLEYAX COMMUNITY. 81 
 
 of the regenerate and child-like from the sinful, and 
 those who will not be admonished. 
 
 It was a simple bnt momentous event, when, in 
 the year 1739, several persons came to Mr. Wesley 
 in London, " who appeared to be deeply convinced of 
 sin, and earnestly groaning for redemption," desiring 
 liim, as did two or tliree more the next day, that he 
 would spend some time with them in prayer, and 
 advise them how to flee from the wrath to come, 
 which they saw continually hanging over their heads. 
 Por after he had complied with their request, and 
 found that the number of applicants was continually 
 increasing, he was led to institute " Classes,'''' or small 
 companies of individuals, under the special care of a 
 Leader, whose spiritual function should be, in relation 
 to all the members, 1. To inquire how their souls 
 prosper ; 2. To advise, reprove, comfort, or exhort, 
 as occasion might require. 
 
 The Gospel had already been powerfully preached, 
 by Mr. Wesley and liis coadjutors, to the awakening 
 and salvation of many ; but hitherto there was no pro- 
 vision for gathering the spiritually-minded and peni- 
 tent into one practical brotherhood, thus separating 
 them from the ungodly around. It was an expedient 
 which greatly fostered a disposition on the part of any 
 brother to go to his fellow in any case of mismider- 
 standing, offence, or sin, and teU the erring one, or 
 supposed erring one, of his fault between liimself and 
 him alone. The whole arrangement was one whicli 
 appealed to mutual candour, as that candour was con- 
 nected with their common fear of hell and desire of hea- 
 ven, and tlieir common j)urpose of working out their 
 own salvation with fear and trembling. Nor was this 
 
 G 
 
82 HOW ACKNOWLEDGED IN THE WESLEYAN COMMUNITY. 
 
 all: tlie appointment of a Leader originated the practice 
 of inquiry, — that is, inquiry into the spiritual state of 
 each person, — ^into the character of his attaiiunents, 
 encouragements, hinderances, difficulties, and the like ; 
 which, with its subsequent admonitions, and attendant 
 devotional exercises, is recognised by the Apostle 
 Paul in Eom. xv. 14,^ and Col. iii. 16.t An act 
 of sin generally arises from some latent evil affection, 
 which has rendered the person that cherishes it spirit- 
 ually weak and liable to temptation; and therefore, 
 what is so likely to search out evil in its origin, and 
 nip it in the bud, as the practice of a serious, loving 
 inquiry, continued from week to week ? 
 
 Christians, according to this provision, follow out 
 St. Paulas injunction to the Thessalonians to " comfort 
 themselves together;^' " edify one another/^ "warn 
 the unruly/^ "comfort the feeble-minded/^ "sup- 
 port the weak.''^ (1 Thess. v.) And then, as several 
 Classes are united together under a conjoint pastorate 
 of several Ministers, who are, according to the same 
 testimony of the Apostle in the same chapter, " over 
 them in the Lord,^^ and appointed, in the higher sense, 
 to "admonish them ;^' another form of inquiry and 
 watchfidness is rendered necessary, namely, that over 
 the Leaders and their Classes, and over any other 
 collateral office-bearers who may exist. Then, 
 lastly, as the same St. Paul, mindfid of the will of 
 
 * " And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye 
 also are fuU of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admo- 
 nish one another." 
 
 t " Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom ; 
 toaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spi- 
 j'itual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." 
 
HOW ACKNOWLEDGED IX THE WESLEYAN COMMUNITY. S3 
 
 his Lord and Master, has addressed himself in his 
 Miletian charge to all Ministers, saying, " Take heed 
 to yourselves," as well as to " all the flock," (Acts xx.,) 
 the inquiry proceeds, in its last and highest form, 
 from the assembled Conference to each of its mem- 
 bers, — an inquiry founded on the mutual understand- 
 ing, all the way tlirough, that as aU are joined toge- 
 ther to put away sin, and obtain vital holiness, there 
 is nothing to be evaded, and nothing hid ; no other 
 consequence being at stake, in rcsj^ect of man^s judg- 
 ment at least, than that any offending brother, if 
 unbending and impenitent, shall be disowned and 
 avoided by the rest. 
 
 We thus see that the commandment respecting 
 purit}^, given by our Lord in the eighteenth chapter of 
 St. Matthew, is expounded by the Apostles, and so 
 explained as to make it apply to the repression of sin 
 in its very source by the practice of watchful inquiry. 
 All this, as before said, is perfectly intolerable to an 
 individual who stands upon the privileges of a citizen 
 of this world : and therefore it is a test of simphcity 
 and spirituality. When these are gone, or hastening 
 to decay, all solicitous questioning will be repudiated ; 
 and he who claims the privileges of this world's la"\v, 
 such as that of not criminating himself, must be con- 
 tent to retire from Christian fellowship, and be a sim- 
 ple member of civil society. There are evils which 
 distract and ruin a church, which in the eye of the 
 civil law are no crime at all : and therefore he who 
 cannot submit to spiritual disciphne, has no cause for 
 deeming it a hardship, if he have to take his lot with 
 the " heathen man" and the " pubUcan," that is, the 
 mere civilian. The whole Wesleyan discipline, grow- 
 G 2 
 
84 HOW ACKNOWLEDGED IN THE WESLEYAN COMMUNITY. 
 
 ing out of the Class-Meeting, so providentially ori- 
 ginatedj and so tliorouglily necessitated in all its 
 steps, up to the culminating point of Conference 
 inquiry, is pervaded throughout by the principle here 
 expounded. 
 
 And as to spintualitij in its rule, involving the ab- 
 sence of Gentile lordship over God^s heritage, one 
 can hardly deny that here in particular it is the ser- 
 vant of all who obtains any right to fill an influential 
 or governing position. Let any man look over the 
 names of those who have been invested with the liigh- 
 est offices, — Presidents of Conference, Secretaries of 
 the Missions, Chairmen of Districts, and the like; 
 and then ask if social position and adventitious cir- 
 cumstances have been of any avail. Let him mark 
 whether or not these servants of Christ have slowly 
 arisen, as their graces have developed, through years 
 of toil and self-denial for the good of God's people, 
 to their successive posts of eminence ; and whe- 
 ther the laws of election have not been suited to 
 harmonise with this spiritual rule, and secure its 
 observance. 
 
 Many assailants of the Wesleyan cause and disci- 
 pline have laboured to lay open the lowly origin of 
 many of its most eminent Ministers, with a view to 
 expose them and their coadjutors to the sinister regard 
 of the world : but if there be any authority and truth 
 in the discourse of Christ with the sons of Zebedee, 
 the argument, to those who understand Christianity 
 at least, and who are not of the world, may point in 
 a very different direction. The law of order is 
 obeyed in accepting and acting upon those distinctions 
 wliich are already created by Divine Providence, in 
 
HOW ACKNOWLEDGED IX THE WESLEYAX COMMUNITY. 85 
 
 which we trace the minds of Christians variously 
 endowed, as their persons are marked by a ditFerence 
 of form and feature.' If there are rectoral minds, 
 why should they not rule ? If there are ardent minds, 
 why should they not have a sphere in which to burn ? 
 If there are educated minds, why should not they in 
 their turn educate ? If there are meditative and phi- 
 losophical minds, why should they not have matters 
 given them to ponder ? If there be souls which throb 
 with high enterprise, why not send them on great 
 designs ? All these arrangements will involve 
 mutual subordination, — an overseer, by analogy, or a 
 steward there, and a feUow- servant a little lower here : 
 but does tliis useful and voluntary submission, yea, 
 or if it be recognised by rule, (so long as they are 
 parties to that rule,) interfere with either the real 
 freedom of the servant, or the glory of the Supreme 
 Master ? No man is free in a position for which he 
 is unfitted, and it is unkind and unjust to place him 
 there. 
 
 If, notwithstanding the palpable facts of varying 
 degrees of ability and power among the pastoral 
 servants of Clirist, there be no practical acknowledg- 
 ment of them amongst each other in discipline and 
 legislation, it is difficult to understand how souls so 
 unaccustomed to defer to authority can acknowledge, 
 with anything like intelligent faith, the supremacy 
 even of the Head in heaven. How is this to place 
 the right stone in the building, and in its proper 
 position ? Nay, indeed. One is their " Master, even 
 Christ, and aU" they, notwithstanding their diversi- 
 ties of gifts, and consequently of place, " are bretliren." 
 
 And finally, ^Aith regard to expansion, or the law of 
 
86 PRINCIPLES MUST EXPLAIN PRECEPTS. 
 
 aggression upon the world : a stranger to the Metho- 
 dist constitution, or passer-by, can perceive this fea- 
 ture, when he hardly knows of or understands any other. 
 The removal of Ministers from their present stations 
 to other Circuits at the end of every tliree years, is a 
 constant counteraction — whatever may be its attend- 
 ant disadvantages in another way — of the disposition 
 to settle down and find rest in one circle. The 
 healthy financial support of the ministry and ordinances 
 in a new place, which have been introduced there 
 Avith difficulty, is generally dependent on making fur- 
 ther advances, enlarging the Circuit, and gaining a 
 greater number of supporting members ; the raising 
 of a new congregation rather strengthening than 
 Aveakening an old one ; while the simple line written 
 by Mr. Wesley in his "TavcIvc Eules of a Hel|)er," 
 "It is your business to save as many souls as you 
 can," describes a prime function of practical religion, 
 in which every one, from the IMinister to the youth on 
 trial, who thoroughly imbibes the spirit of the Class- 
 ^leeting, finds both his labour and his rest. 
 
 Here, then, are rules of action adopted, wliich pro- 
 vide for the first, broadest, and best purposes of the 
 Christian religion; yea, by means of which Chrisfs 
 primary statutes, as explained and applied by the 
 Apostles, are all brought out into authoritative 
 control. 
 
 Various Christian communities may each have their 
 peculiar modes of bringing these general obhgations 
 to bear ; and whatever special church-rule, like that 
 which requires a Wesleyan to meet in Class, or a 
 junior Minister to submit to his senior, be honestly 
 regarded as the best means of fulfilling the will of the 
 
PRINCIPLES MUST EXPLAIN PRECEPTS. 87 
 
 Great Head as declared in His AYord, it is surely not 
 to be thought unscriptural because it is not formally 
 recognised in Scriptui-e, or because it may ]ui})pen 
 to differ from some other regulation adopted to pro- 
 mote the same end in another department of the 
 household. Radii from the same centre are not to 
 be regarded as out of the area of the circle. He 
 alone who cannot take a large and spiritual under- 
 standing of the precept, " Eemember the Sabbath- 
 day to keep it holy," will expect to have all his Sun- 
 day employments or omissions of employment set 
 down in the sacred text ; and, in like manner, he 
 only who is unable to see the full depth of Christ's 
 words to Peter, " Feed my sheep," " Peed my lambs," 
 or Paul's word to the Elders, ""Take heed to yom*- 
 selves and to all the flock," will expect to find in the 
 New Testament any chapter of canons as to what 
 things he shall have a right to do or not to do, or what 
 liberties and restraints, in respect of applying Christ's 
 principles, he shall be made to feel. 
 
 The ancient love-feast and kiss of peace were pecu- 
 liar social forms which w^ere sanctified in passing, but 
 not imposed on all ages ; even as, when Christ com- 
 manded His disciples to have their loins girded. He 
 did not mean that they and all believers should wear 
 the kind of clothing which made that peculiar action 
 necessary. Communion and love are now better 
 represented on the one hand, and watchful vigilance 
 on the other, than by those obsolete forms. Not to 
 know how to derive even minor precept from Divine 
 principle, is to be ignorant how to draw water from 
 tlie living rill of Scripture. A part of our moral 
 trial, as we have already said, lies in the manner i]i 
 
88 PRINCIPLES MUST EXPLAIN PRECEPTS. 
 
 v/liicli we do this ; but moral trial is inevitable, flee 
 ^^ilere we will, and adopt what church-rules, or what 
 freedom from rule, we may. 
 
 Simply and sincerely to look to Christ, His aims 
 and purposes, and the final issue of building His 
 church below, is the only way to test the true spirit 
 of our denominational rules. If there be so glorious 
 an effluence of law from those two great maxims of 
 heaven, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
 thine heart, and thy neighbour as thyself,^' that the 
 whole world of God^s intelligent creatures is fiUed 
 \w\i\\ wisdom and righteousness ; so the words of 
 Christ and His Apostles form together the church's 
 day-star, a light shining in a dark place, which casts 
 its beams upon every honest and loving measure taken, 
 in mutual counsel, to promote purity, order, peace, 
 SPIRITUALITY, and expansion, and especially where 
 trial and success have already encouraged the toil. 
 These all glow under the sacred light-stream, as under 
 the pillar of fire in the wilderness did the tents and 
 tabernacle of Israel, — a furniture fabricated by man, 
 but generally devised and specially owned by God. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note (A), page 45. 
 
 Matt. xvi. 18, 19. — Olsliausen admits that this is the only passage 
 where [even according to his opinion] the e'/f/cATjo-ia stands as equi- 
 valent to the phrase " kingdom of God." The figm'c used by our 
 Lord is, however, so far from involving the identity of the two, as to 
 suggest directly their diversity. The designation of Peter as Simon 
 Bar-Jona, " son of Jona," contrasted as it is with Peter's confession 
 respecting Christ, " Thou art the Son of the living God," thereby 
 
APPENDIX. 89 
 
 makinc: " son of Jonas" antithetical to " Son of God," evidently sets 
 him forth, when he is called TreVpa, in his mere hnnian ministry, — 
 the fii-st or fonndation-preachcr of the Gospel to hoth Jew and Gen- 
 tile. In addition to this, and apart from this ohject, thontjh in 
 relation to it, he was favom'ed with the snperhuman endowment of 
 authoritatively declaring the terms on which men could enter into 
 pacilic communion with God: all this our commentator seems to 
 admit in his subsequent note, and thus neutralises the present anno- 
 tation : " It is certainly true, at the same time, that the ideal church 
 exists nowhere else than in the real, as the kernel within the shell. 
 If this be overlooked, we are lost in empty idealism. But certainly 
 the outer form is not the same thing with the higher being which 
 animates it, just as the soul is not without the body, yet the body 
 must not be taken for the soul itself." — Olshausen, " Commentary 
 on the Gospels," vol. ii., p. 220. Edinburgh, 1848. 
 
 Matt. xx. 24, 25. — " The comparison of the &pxovres and fx^ydXoi 
 lias positively no meaning, if it was intended that there should be no 
 irpwToi and jx^-yaXoi in the kingdom of God. Their existence is 
 obnously taken for granted by om- Lord. Amidst the relations of 
 the alwv ovTos, dominion rests on physical force, and the advantage 
 of it is seen in the subjugation of others, and the service rendered by 
 them. In the fiatxiAeia all pre-eminence rests on love and truth; 
 and love teaches us to serve others, and not to let ourselves be served. 
 The mistake of the disciples consisted rather in confounding the cha- 
 racter of earthly and Divine authority. The former, owing to the 
 sinfulness of human nature, is combined with oppression and slavery : 
 the latter has, as its residt, a blessing for all who yield themselves to 
 its influence. But, in order to be delivered from sinful self-^-ill, Avhich 
 often knows how to assert its power even under the form of spiritual 
 influence, man requires to have his soul, in the first instance, 
 thoroughly humbled, and to pass through that baptism of sultering, 
 in which the old man is wholly given over to death. The new man 
 thence arising, who belongs to the kingdom of God, can, in that case, 
 according to the measure of his calling, have dominion." — Olshausen, 
 " Commentary on the Gospels," in he, Matt. xx. 24-28. 
 
 Note (B), page 48. 
 " There is a great difference, as between the making and confirm- 
 ing of a covenant, and the keeping it ; so likewise beUceen the solemn 
 admission into the visible church, and the mijstical,'' [i. e., the king- 
 dom,] " which consists of real saints and loyal subjects. "What 
 kind of profession and promise is required in the party to be baptized, 
 
90 APPENDIX. 
 
 may be considered afterwards. By all this we may easily understand, 
 that if we will exjoect any benefit by our baptism, we must have a 
 special care to perform om- promise, confirmed by this solemn rite : 
 for these sacraments are special and distinct laws added to all the rest 
 for this end, — to engage man more strongly to observe them : and bap- 
 tizing is a kind of naturalising such as are baptized." — Lawson's 
 Theo-Politica, book ii., chap. 17, p. 329, "On Baptism." 
 
 Note (C), page 63. 
 
 " Primb duhium non est, quin, suhsistente Jaclceorum repiiblicd, 
 Spiedrii maximi Hierosohjmitani summa auctoritas recepta fuerit 
 in omnihus Judceorum synagogis, uhicmique faerintlocorum ; pariter 
 ac Presbgterii Hierosolymitani inter Christianos, quandiu Jpostoli 
 illi prcesederimt. Bioris Fllius in Kabhala signate de R. Ganialiele : 
 ' Ecce novimus, qubd R. Gamaliel Prceses fuerit Senatus summi, 
 ejiisdemque princeps, et qubd institata ejus recepta fuerint per uni- 
 versam terrain Israel et in omnihus exilii locis, neque rege neque iillo 
 alio homine inter cedente.'' Alia hac spectantia produxhmis lihro 
 superiore. Et id solum sufficere poterat h\c monnisse. Etenini ttbi 
 regimen ecclesice comparamus cum regimine synagogtB, qidsque intel- 
 ligit, id prcecipue pertinere ad ecclesiam primb institutam., qua 
 synagogcp, filia fait, et inde originem traxitT — Vitringa I)e Vet. 
 Sgnag., lib. iii., pars i., cap. xvii., § 3, p. 866. 
 
 " First it is not to be doubted that during the Jewish common- 
 wealth the chief authority of the great Sanhedrim at Jerusalem 
 was received in all synagogues of the Jews, of whatsoever places 
 they were; equally as the same authority of the Jerusalem Pres- 
 bytery was received among Christians as long as the Apostles pre- 
 sided. Dioris Filius, on the KabbaJa, says specially concerning R. 
 Gamaliel, ' Lo, we know that R. Gamaliel was the President and 
 chief of the great Sanhedrim ; and that its institutes were received 
 thi'oughout the whole land of Israel, and in all places of exile, no 
 King or any other individual interfering.' Other things tending this 
 way we have produced in the book above. And this alone might 
 suffice to have here hinted. For, when we compare the regimen 
 of the church with the regimen of the synagogue, every one under- 
 stands this especially to appertain to the church first instituted, 
 which was the daughter of the synagogue, and drew its origin from 
 thence." 
 
 The same learned author shows that, although the mutual de- 
 pendence of the synagogues was broken up when the Sanhedi'im was 
 
APPENDIX. 91 
 
 dissolved, yet that dissolution did uot take place till long after the 
 destruction of Jerusalem; and that other great central synagogues 
 and schools, especially in Syi-ia and the East, continued for a long 
 time, on a smaller scale, and under Patriarchs, to represent its power 
 and influence ; and yet, that in most cases the concurrence of the 
 ])eoplc was sought in all important acts of the administration. — Vide 
 p. 867. 
 
 Note (D), page 70. 
 
 "JosEPHUS, in his 'Jewish Wars,' speaking of the strife at 
 Caesarea between the Jews and Syrians, says, ' The Elders of the 
 Jews were unable to restrain their own people ; ' and in the account 
 given by him of this sedition, no other rulers are mentioned but these 
 Elders. In the fom-teenth chapter of the same book, when narrating 
 another tumult that occurred at Csesai'ca, he speaks of the rulers of the 
 Jews, and these twelve in number. In another book, making mention 
 of one Antiochus, he says, that ' he w^as a man of repute amongst the 
 people, because his father was the chief Ai-chon ' " [one of the terms 
 used by our Lord in His reproof of the sons of Zebedee] " ' of the 
 Jews at Antioch.' And, to give one instance more, (one which proves 
 the union of the ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction in the same indi- 
 viduals,) — one Jesus, the Rider of Tiberias, is represented as 'ordering 
 the multitude to depart fi-om the synagogue, and permitting the 
 Senate alone to remain.' This last passage is conclusive as to the 
 form of synagogal government : there is in it mention made of a 
 President and a Senate, and also strong e\adence that the President 
 of the sniagogue was also chief Magistrate of the city ; for he is 
 styled ' the Ruler (Archou) of Tiberias.' " — Bernard's Abridgment 
 of Vitringa, Be Vet. Synag., p. 55, London, 1842. 
 
 "Where this w^ork avails, 1 quote it rather than the more minute 
 Latin original, for the sake of the mere English reader. It must be 
 remembered, that it was at this very C.esarea that St. Peter, 
 by his preaching, opened the kingdom of heaven to the Gentiles ; and 
 that it was at this very Antio(?h that he spent some consider- 
 able time more : and probably the scenes which he woidd witness, in 
 the exercise of his ministiy, in this place and elsewhere, of civil 
 oppression by spiritual rulers, would prompt, in after-years, the 
 exhortations in his Epistles. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CHURCH, WHAT, AND OF WHOM COMPOSED. 
 
 " We cannot, then, take a better occasion to searcli into the true 
 notion of the Church of Christ than by looking into the origi- 
 nation and increase thereof ; ^^^thout which it is impossible to 
 have a right conception of it." — Bishop Pearson " On the 
 Creed." 
 
 § I. The last chapter, it is hoped, has opened out 
 views, more or less clear, as to the will of Christ in 
 reference to the constitution of His church ; and espe- 
 cially such as these : — ^that it should be composed of 
 persons in different positions, — different by His pro- 
 vidential appointment; that while all were account- 
 able as individuals to Himself, the final Judge, in 
 respect of His requirements upon them in their ordinary 
 Christian walk, some should be made specially respon- 
 sible for its oversight, its pm*ity, and its extension. 
 These views are amply maintained and enlarged in the 
 teaching of the Apostles. The church of God in their 
 days was not a kind of archetypal community, set up 
 by the personal witnesses of Christ^s resui-rection, 
 fraught, as such, with a sufficient patrimony of 
 truth, and then left to shift for — that is, to enlarge 
 and propagate — itself, as it best might do. It stands 
 rather in constant connexion with the kingdom of 
 heaven, which is the ever-present reign of Christ 
 
DISTI^'CT SOCIETIES NOT SELE-ORIGINATED. 93 
 
 within it ; under wliicli certain men are raised up and 
 endowed to influence and direct other men ; and 
 servants and stewards are ever provided, in their neces- 
 sary degrees, orders, and mutual rehxtions, for the 
 preservation and expansion of the whole.^ 
 
 With this great work of ordering the kingdom — 
 one of the principal functions of which is calling 
 His Ministers, and appointing them their work 
 — Christ charges Himself : for, even when Peter would 
 busy his fancy in vain curiosity as to the future desig- 
 nation of John, he received this rebuke from his 
 Master : " What is that to thee ? Pollow thou me :'' 
 (John xxi. 22 :) ^. cl., "Leave all anxieties respecting 
 the servants of the Lord to their Master/'' Accord- 
 ing to this Divine arrangement, the private Christians 
 of any generation are, in effect, the spiritual chil- 
 dren of contemporary or preceding Ministers of 
 Christ. As the Good Shepherd laid down His Hfe 
 for the sheep, after having toiled through His humi- 
 liation on their behalf, and thereby acquired His right 
 to rule them supremely ; so His servants, who, after 
 His example, toil for their edification and salvation 
 subordinately, — that is, in a degree unspeakably 
 lower, — acquire their obHgation to rule subordinately, 
 remembering that their ivjluence can only extend over 
 those tvho voluntarily achioivledge that influence and 
 the relation tvhich arises from it : and thus, making 
 exception for cases of extraordinary interference for 
 the revival of religion, the church has an historic 
 connexion through the links of spiritual paternity and 
 filiation from age to age. (1 Cor. iv. 15). 
 
 * See Note (A), Appendix. 
 
94 DISTINCT SOCIETIES NOT SELF-OEIGINATED. • 
 
 It will not be enough, then, to look around us upon 
 a pious company, and say, "Here are two or tlu-ee 
 professing Christians met together to worship God, 
 to watch over and edify each other ; and so here is 
 a church/^ For a band of Sunday-school Teachers 
 might do this at any time, and under pretence of 
 simplicity produce endless confusion. The question 
 arises, — Are they met in Christ's name ? that is, sub- 
 ject to His LAAV and order, and subject to the law 
 and order of His Apostles, — those whom He em- 
 powered to bind and loose in regard to the ordinances 
 of His household ? 
 
 § II. ^'lien holy love was allowed to spread all its 
 influences through the first societies of believers, these 
 principles of spiritual relationship were rather sponta- 
 neously felt and obeyed than minutely defined and 
 spoken of : but when that love failed, and it became 
 necessary for the Apostles to explain what the church 
 was, how it was originated, how maintained, and for 
 what end existing, nothing could be more clear on 
 this subject than, for instance, the statements of St. 
 Paul. He gave no general definition of the word: 
 he rather rested on the twofold Old-Testament idea, 
 abeady mentioned, which was generally received and 
 understood ; but instead of the Old-Testament mode 
 of constituting the church, we are presented with the 
 following formula : 1. " There is one body, and one 
 Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your call- 
 ing." " One body " is an incorporation of persons ; 
 " one Spirit" is the Holy Spirit, the efficient Agent 
 of the kingdom of heaven, who rules within their 
 fellowship, among those who obey the Gospel call. 
 2. " One Lord," (as Supreme Head, whose humanity 
 
APOSTOLICAL FORMULA. 95 
 
 in that office excludes every mortal Pope or Avliat 
 elsCj) ^*'one faitli, one baptism/' 3. '^ One God and 
 Father of all^ Avho is above all, and tlu'ongh all_, and 
 in YOU all :" — in order, indeed, above Christ, as 
 being His Father, and therefore Father of all uho are 
 created in Christ Jesus, Ministers or not. 4. " But" 
 (notwithstanding there is but one paramount authority 
 and source of spiritual life, one Father) " unto every 
 one of us is given grace, according to the measure of 
 the gift of Christ :'' and, as to this gift, 5. ^'^ He gave 
 some Apostles, and some Prophets, and some Evange- 
 lists, and some Pastors and Teachers ; for the perfect- 
 ing of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the 
 edifying of the body of Christ," &c. 
 
 Now, when the Apostle says, " Unto every one of 
 us is given grace,"*' he obviously means that, as far as 
 the Ephesian believers were concerned, the grace given 
 to them was that of a sanctified "and divinely appointed 
 ministry. The gift of Christ spoken of in this place, 
 at least, was not the gift of spiritual blessings in vari- 
 ous degrees directly to the souls of the congregation ; 
 but the gift of particular individuals, specially en- 
 dowed in order that tliey might make it an organized 
 Cliristian institute. " He ascended up on high, and 
 led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men :" that 
 is. He gave these gifts unto men, not as they were a 
 church, but as they were me^-e men, spiritually desti- 
 tute and dead in sin ; and He gave these gifts that 
 He might make them Christians, — might build a 
 church, or constitute a body, according as the figure 
 might be. And the three forms of expression in the 
 twelfth verse whicli describe the end for which these 
 gifts are granted, are not to be taken, I apprehend, as 
 
96 APOSTOLICAL FOllMULA. 
 
 varied phases of one object merely, to be accom- 
 plished by the Christian ministry, but as defining 
 THEEE DISTINCT OBJECTS, all of wliicli are linked to 
 each other. Apostles, Prophets, Evangehsts, and 
 Pastors were given, first, Trpo? rov KarapTLa-fjuov rcov 
 dyicov, " for the perfecting or putting fully in order 
 of the saints," or Christian believers, simply viewed 
 as such, without regard to any relation in which they 
 might stand : and as Clirist originated the primitive 
 disciples, and so formed the nucleus of the church, 
 this was the first work in order of time, because the 
 first-formed Christians had yet to be nurtured. They 
 were given, also, for ^^the work of the ministry," — a 
 work which, when spoken of by the Apostles as " this 
 ministry," or emphatically " the ministry," means the 
 preaching of the Gospel ito the ungodly, — the great 
 EVANGELISTIC FUNCTION, by whicli the world is 
 brought to Christ. 'And also they were given, in 
 their joint and several contributions to the object, for 
 "the edifying of the body of Christ;" which is the 
 placing of behevers in such relations to each other in 
 order, discipline, and service, and doing tliis with such 
 intelligence and simplicity of view, that a spiritual 
 and organical product sliall arise, liaving the know- 
 ledge, strength, and unity of a man, and the compact- 
 ness and symmetry of a building ; and this building, 
 according to the already observed notion, may be 
 either a distinct section of the Cliristian family, or the 
 great Christian family itseK in its mature condition. 
 
 Clirist, it must be carefully observed, has given all 
 these to do all this work ; and therefore, if some of 
 these, that is, if distinctive Apostles, Prophets, and 
 Evangelists, are no longer found, the Pastors and 
 
APOSTOLICAL FORMULA. 07 
 
 Teachers wlio remain must still be responsible for 
 such apostolic, prophesying, evangelistic, as well as 
 nurturing, functions as the -world needs. The 
 7rpo(f)r]T6La, or unfolding tlie truth of God under 
 Divine unction, must yet, in its still allowable degrees, 
 be cherished; the Gospel must yet be preached to the 
 nations ; loose and half-formed Cliristians must yet be 
 wrought into a living frame ; and Pastors and Teach- 
 ers nuist now see that all this is done. 
 
 The persons mentioned above are not to be regarded 
 as graceful and fitting appendages to a communion 
 of good people, which might be a chui'ch in the 
 Christian sense without them. They are rather a 
 part of its essence : they constitute that element, 
 through which the rule of Christ is made continually 
 to bear, and the religious body to increase. For, 
 although, in another place, (1 Cor. xii. 28,) St. Paul 
 speaks of these as being by God set in the church, 
 yet so in David He is said to have set " the solitary in 
 families,^' (Psalm Ixviii. 6,) meaning by those who are 
 so ^^set^' the progenitors of those families, — a real 
 parallel to the case in hand, and more than a parallel ; 
 for, when we consider the evangelical character of the 
 whole Psahn, wliich is the very inspired composition 
 quoted by St. Paul in this place of his Epistle to the 
 Ephesians, as showing forth Clu-ist's victory o\'er 
 death. His resurrection, and bestowment of royal 
 gifts, and the subsequent trimnph of His Gospel, it is 
 within the limits of sober interpretation to say that the 
 raising u]) of the New-Testament church, and its 
 enlargement, under the part apostolic, part prophetic, 
 part evangelistic, and part pastoral ministry of the 
 Gospel, is the very "setting the solitary in families" 
 
 H 
 
98 PRIMITIVE ORDEES. 
 
 of which the PsaLnist speaks. Bishop Pearson is 
 therefore only asserting a just and necessary principle, 
 when he says, " We cannot take a better occasion to 
 search into the true notion of the church of Christ, 
 than by looking into the origination and increase 
 thereof; without which it is impossible to have a 
 right conception of it/' ^ 
 
 § III. With regard to the Ministers thus enume- 
 rated, the Apostles were first ; and, as they received 
 their commission immediately from Cluist, were en- 
 dowed by Him with miraculous powers, and were the 
 special subjects of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, 
 that they might complete the canon of revelation, they 
 stand alone, and have no successors. So, Likewise, the 
 Prophets of the jYew Testament ; who appear to have 
 been intended by their holy and devout utterances of 
 evangelical truth, both original and expository, to 
 stand in contrast with those cold and jejune teachers 
 who had hitherto been heard, and mthout effect, in 
 the synagogues. The Evangelists, too, were extraor- 
 dinary; for they made no provision, nor did the 
 Apostles make any, as to the perpetuation of their dis- 
 tinctive order. The other one of these classes, which 
 are said in both enumerations (1 Cor. xii. 28 ; Eph. iv. 
 11) to be constituted by God and Christ, is in the 
 last described as that of " Pastor and Teacher." The 
 expression, " Pastors and Teachers," cannot be under- 
 stood to mean two offices, but one, as will abundantly 
 appear from a due collation of Scripture, as well as 
 from the structure of the Apostle's language ; for, had 
 he intended two offices, the verse would have run on 
 
 * "Exposition of the Creed," p. 503. Dobsou's Edition, 1832. 
 
STANDING OIIDEH. 99 
 
 in the style of the former clause, " Some Pastors, and 
 some Teachers/' 
 
 These Pastors and Teachers, in 1 Peter v. 1, 2, 
 are called " Elders," who are required " to shepherd 
 the flock of God ;'' " to act as Bishops over the same." 
 So, also, in Acts xx. 28. In 1 Tim. iii. 2, they are 
 required to be ^^ apt to teach." In Titus i. 7, the 
 Elder or Bishop is oltcoyoixo^, " steward," as in our 
 Lord's discourse. In Heb. xiii. 7, 17, 24, the 
 official persons above referred to are governors or 
 guides, from 'r)r^eo^aij " to guide, preside, or rule." 
 In 1 Thess. v. 12, 13, they are described as irpoiara- 
 /jb6vov<;, "acting as rulers." In aU the places the 
 same union of functions is involved which makes up 
 the compound idea in the first two ; namely, ttol- 
 ^laiveiv, "to shepherd :" and, taken singly as well as 
 collectively, they enable us to look at the standing 
 ministerial ofiice from various points of view. They 
 show what the Minister of Clirist is to those indi- 
 viduals severally who, in difi'erent stages of spiritual 
 attainment, are placed under his care. 
 
 xVnother order of church-officers is found mentioned 
 in Scripture, — the Deacons ; but these will be con- 
 sidered in their proper place. So far we see the leaders 
 and spiritual overseers of God's household, — the 
 fathers : now we turn to the numerical majority, — 
 the multitudes of their spiritual children. 
 
 § IV. The church of the jN^ew Testament, then, in 
 liarmony with what has been stated in the preceding 
 pages, cannot be regarded otherwise than as t/ie great 
 company of persons throurjJioiit the world ivlio profess 
 the faith of the evangelical covenant ^ and are desig- 
 nated hi/ its seals ; that is, those who arc bnptized 
 
100 GENEllAL DEFINITION. 
 
 into Cliristj who worship in His name, and statedly 
 communicate in the sacrament of His death. 
 
 This definition is to be so understood, as that, while 
 it includes all truly regenerate persons, " cliildren of 
 the kingdom/^ it does not exclude those who are sin- 
 cerely seeking or desiring to be such ; and therefore 
 comprehends, and is intended to comprehend, a great 
 variety of spiritual states, — all holiness, in connexion 
 with remanent weakness and imperfection. With tliis 
 view the statements of the New Testament will all be 
 found to agree. As this church is on earth, all its 
 members are stiU on probation, and have not gained 
 their indefectible state. It is " the general assembly 
 and church of the first-born, which are written in 
 heaven ;'■' (Heb. xii. 23 ;) that is, if this text refers 
 to men, and not to angels. But this aUusion to 
 Exod. xxxii. 33, when candidly interpreted, must be 
 allowed to include its counterpart, namely, the possi- 
 bility of having any name already written there blotted 
 out tlirough sin. It is Christ^s church, — that for 
 which He gave Himself; but it is in circumstances 
 to need that He should " sanctify it with the washing 
 of water by the word,^^ before He can " present it to 
 Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or 
 wrinkle, or any such thing." (Eph. v. 26, 27.) 
 
 In some places where Christ is spoken of as the 
 Head of it, the term includes the whole of the 
 redeemed in heaven and earth, — the former portion 
 of whom only are perfect and secure, — the other 
 being imperfect and on trial ; as, " Unto Him be glory 
 in the church of Christ Jesus throughout all ages, 
 world without end :" (Eph. iii. 21 :) "And gave Him 
 to be the Head over all things to the church, which 
 
DEFINITION SPECIALLY APPLIED. 101 
 
 is His Body, the fulness of Hiin that filleth all in all -.'' 
 (Eph. i. 22, 23 :) ''And He is the Head of the body, 
 the chm-ch." (Col. i. 18.) Viewing it as one in its 
 relation to both worlds, it is only of the heavenly state 
 of it that Ave find it written, " And there shall in no 
 Avise enter into it anything that defileth." (Rev. xxi. 
 27.) 
 
 Of course, tlien, it will follow, that whatever the 
 church is, in point of spiritual character, that a chm-ch 
 win be, — a section of the aggregate one ; or a congre- 
 gation or community of baptized persons, confessing 
 the faith of the Gospel, and especially the doctrine of 
 the Great Head and His atonement, by oral service, 
 and the observance of His last established ordinance ; 
 adding, more or less, to these conditions the use of 
 such special human institutions, derived fi'om wisdom 
 and experience, and recognising the authority of such 
 special interpretations of doctrinal truth, as they may 
 mutually agi'ee upon, in applying the revealed and 
 fundamental law of Clnist. Dr. Wardlaw, and other 
 Congregational wTiters, contend that churches are 
 regarded in Scripture as being intentionally composed 
 of none but the faithful, that is, true Christians ; and 
 that, in consequence, they shoidd therefore be so com- 
 posed now. If by the " faitliful " they mean those 
 who are turning to God, who, under the influence of 
 prevenient grace, are leaving the practice of sin, and 
 coming to the Savioui' with more or less of desire 
 after Him, — those whose hearts God "has touched;" 
 then we have little or no cause for controversy ; tlie 
 whole matter may turn upon that view of the Calvinian 
 theology by which repentance, or godly sorrow for sin 
 with gracious desires, is taken to be the evidence and 
 
102 PENITENTS NOT EXCLUDED. 
 
 friiit of regeneration; by which the grace of the 
 Eather drawing a soul to Christ is to be regarded as 
 the same tiling as estabHshed spiritual life, or the life 
 of regeneration. According to this view a penitent, 
 or a seeker after salvation, (who, I am far from deny- 
 ing, may be called, in the sense in which the name 
 was first giv^n at Antioch, " a Christian,^'') is taken 
 to be a " saint,^' or " believer,^^ or " faithful one.''' 
 This, however, will not bear the test of an enlarged 
 collation and comparison of Scripture;^ and as from 
 vague premises mischievous consequences may be 
 dra^vn, it behoves us to be a little more explicit. 
 
 A believer in Christ, one who is really such, whose 
 state and privileges are drawn out in the eighth chapter 
 of St. Paul's Epistle to the Eomans, is a person who 
 is justified by faith, is in Cln:ist Jesus, has power over 
 sin, and is the subject of peace, love, and immortal 
 hope. He, in one word, is the individual who has 
 
 * It must strike every one tliat by far the greater number of 
 instances in which men are exhorted or commanded to repent, are 
 those where the requirement is directly made of the sinner ; such as, 
 "Repent, and be converted;" "Repent, and be baj^tized;" "God 
 commandeth all men every where to repent;" and the existence of 
 moral power (received through prevenient grace) to comply with this 
 demand must be admitted, if a slur of a very awful character be not 
 cast upon the Divine perfections : and, however profound and medi- 
 tative minds, from Augustine's time to the present, have vainly 
 endeavoured to exj)lore the bouudaries of the sovereign and the 
 creature will, — the fi-eedom to evil of natm-e, and the constraint of 
 grace, — the grace that is resistible, and the grace that is effectual, — it 
 cannot be denied that the above is the Scriptm-e order, namely, 
 repentance first, pardon and regeneration after. 
 
 We must needs rest upon the plain teaching of inspired truth, 
 rather than encounter and resolve metapliysical difficidties, often 
 intangible, cloud-like, and shifting. AVc would rest on the wisdom 
 of God in a mystery. 
 
SCRIPTURE NOTION OF A TRUE BELIEVER. 103 
 
 attained the Gospel salvation ; — that of which Christ 
 spake when He said, " He that believeth and is bap- 
 tized shall be saved/"* But there is evidence that the 
 Apostles in forming Christian churches admitted 
 nianv, very many, who Avere yet short of tliis attain- 
 ment ; that is, deeming all the while that they might 
 be so deficient. 
 
 It is said that the members added to the first 
 church at Jerusalem were tol/? aco^o/jLevov<;, "the 
 saved j^'"^ but tliis is hardly a more exact rendering 
 of the words than that which stands in the terms 
 of our own version, " those who should be saved." 
 The present or imperfect participle passive behig 
 used, the sense rather is, " those who were being 
 saved ;" that is, they were passing through the pro- 
 cess of inquiry on those solemn subjects treated of 
 by Peter, through the stages of incipient repentance 
 and belief in the Gospel, and, with salvation in view, 
 had turned to the Lord.f It is no more likely that 
 the previous three thousand persons could have been 
 submitted in one day to the test of individual exa- 
 mination as to their spiritual state, than that they 
 could have been baptized by immersion. 
 
 § Y. It is said that the terms which are used by 
 the Apostles in addressing the churches, are such as 
 cannot be applied to any but real Christians ; but it 
 is evident that those terms, when used Antli reference 
 to companies of persons, are to be taken in their con- 
 
 * Dr. Wardlaw. 
 
 t See also Bloomfield in loc, who sustains the same view from the 
 Syriac. Archbishop Whately, too, to the same point, though para- 
 phrastically : " Those who were entering on the road of salvation." — 
 Essay ii., p. 84. 
 
104 POUCE OF NEW-TESTAMENT TEUMS. 
 
 ventional sense, tliough with much greater strictness 
 of meaning than when used by the Okl-Testament 
 writers with respect to the Jewish church. As for 
 instance, Cliristians are " called of Jesus Clirist," 
 "beloved of God," "called to be saints:" (Rom. i. 
 7 :) that is, they are, as a chitrch, beloved of God, 
 and called ; though vocation does not necessarily 
 imply the possession of the blessings to which the call 
 refers : the being called in the parable did not neces- 
 sarily involve the sitting down to the feast with a 
 wedding-garment on. The eighth chapter it is which 
 explains who are personally united to Clirist. The 
 spiritual state of individuals is described in the body of 
 the Epistle in distinct and different terms. Again : the 
 several societies are addressed as " sanctified in Christ 
 Jesus," (1 Cor. i. 2,) " saints," (2 Cor. i. 1,) "faithful 
 in Christ Jesus," (Eph. i. 1; Col. i. 2,) "elect;" 
 (1 Peter i. 2 ;) but the verb, " to sanctifj^," in its 
 sense of "to separate to God," (as John x^^i. 19,) 
 may well be used in reference to baptized persons 
 set apart from the world, in order to indicate their 
 primlege of holiness, rather than, as to the whole of 
 them, their attainment of it. " Saints " is a term 
 which designates those actually holy persons who gave 
 a character to the whole community; but the very 
 word which is here used is the word which St. Paul 
 applies to the children of parents, one of whom only 
 is a believer or church-member, (1 Cor. vii. 14,) 
 plainly showing that even infants in covenant relation 
 to God are not to be excluded — that is, in the anticipa- 
 tion of their Cliristian nurture and instruction — from 
 initial membership ; and among the faithful and elect 
 there are those who are exhorted to put off the old 
 
FORCE OF NEW-TESTAMENT TERMS. 105 
 
 and put on tlie new man, (Epli. iv. 2:2,) as also tliose 
 wlio arc spiritual, (Gal. iv. 1,) and tliose who are, in 
 certain respects, jet carnal. (1 Cor. iii. 3.) 
 
 § YI. Erom these considerations, I feel satisfied that 
 the Apostles did not so frame the early churches, that 
 they were understood to consist of none but truly 
 regenerate persons, or established Christians ; but 
 that they admitted those who had a serious belief of 
 Clmstian doctrines, a desire for salvation, and who 
 gave evidence of it by breaking off their sins by true 
 repentance ; as well as many others who, although 
 craving spiritual good, had need to be instructed in 
 the very first principles of the doctrine of Christ. In 
 any other view I can make no sense of great portions 
 of the apostolic ^^Titings. Exactly adapted to tliis 
 character and condition of the family of God is the 
 ministry we have been considering. It is easy to 
 understand why there should be persons designated 
 and acting as Pastors, Elders, overseers, stewards, and 
 guides, if according to Divine intention there should 
 be so many, in respect of whom no reason could be 
 assigned why they were placed in the church at aU 
 but to be fed, tended, overseen, ruled, and guided. 
 If aU were to be, according to intentional arrange- 
 ment, established Christians, whose conversion and 
 regeneration were confirmed, it is not so easy to see 
 why such a ministry as these titles describe should 
 exist. It is natural that our brethren who contend 
 for the democratic form of the church slioidd be 
 desirous to adopt a high theory of pure comnmnion ; 
 for a community must be pure, loving, and intelli- 
 gent in a very high degree, in which subordination 
 and deference on the part of some, and a mild, guiding 
 
106 PURE COMMUNION, SOBERLY UNDERSTOOD. 
 
 influence and authority on the part of others, form not 
 a condition of permanent existence. Subordination 
 seems to be recognised even in heaven ; but on earth, 
 when we come to practical duty, it is as necessary as 
 its analogy is universal : and disparity is always Hnked 
 to it ; for where all things are equal, there is neither 
 order nor disorder ; for disparity is the very element 
 out of which order arises. A community of real 
 saints, with nearly equal knowledge, might, perhaps, 
 for a while direct everytliing with uniform personal 
 influence and common consent ; but where there are 
 the young, the ignorant, the weak in faith, the peni- 
 tent, they must have those associated with them who 
 have a position elevated enough and graces sufficient 
 to meet these needy conditions with a proper supply ; 
 in other words, who are over them in the Lord. Let 
 me not be understood as pleading for even the least 
 degree of sin in God^s household. He hates it ^vith 
 perfect hatred ; and our hatred of it ought to be as 
 great as our nature is capable of. I am pleading for 
 God^s way of putting down and removing it, rather 
 than our own. The constitution thus recognised does 
 not derogate from the Divine purity, and throw do\^T^i 
 the barrier between the church and the world ; for no 
 man can be supposed to bear a stronger testimony 
 against sin, than he who has tasted of its evil and 
 bitterness, and is coming to a right perception of his 
 condition : none does more honour to the " father's 
 house" than the hungry and reft prodigal, leaving his 
 husks and wretchedness, and proclaiming his resolu- 
 tion to return to that father's lawful authority. Con- 
 fessing sin glorifies God, even before sin is pardoned. 
 It does not impugn the mercy of God in our Lord 
 
NO I^'VISIBLE CHURCH. 107 
 
 Jesus Christ, viewed as exercised either towards the 
 workl or the church. To the drowTiing world it opens 
 the ark-door, even while fear is the prompting influ- 
 ence of the applicant for admission, rather than love. 
 It fulfils and illustrates in Christy's people the character 
 given by the Prophets of Himself : " A bruised reed 
 shall He ]iot break, and the smoking flax shall he not 
 quench ; He shall bring forth judgment unto truth.^^ 
 (Isai, xlii. 3.) "He shall gather the lambs with His 
 arm." (xl. 11.) And in the church it calls forth all 
 the agencies of zeal and love for the salvation and 
 confirmation of souls ; or how else would the eloquent 
 ApoUos have been taught by Aquila and Priscilla the 
 way of God more perfectly, when he knew only the 
 baptism of John ? 
 
 § VII. To come back, then, to our general con- 
 clusion : — T/ie church of Christ is the great company 
 of baptized and communicating persons throughout 
 the world, the real believers amongst whom are only 
 known to Him. There is no need, again we say, to 
 adopt the theory of an invisible church, because real 
 Christianity in any one will be always visible ; and 
 \\liere do we learn in Scripture that a member even of 
 Clirist's universal church must, as suck, be finally 
 saved ? Does not our Lord Himself say, " Every 
 branch in ^Ie that bcareth not fruit He taketh away ;" 
 (John XV. 2 ;) and, " If a man abide not in Me, he is 
 cast forth as a branch, and is withered ; and men 
 gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are 
 burned?^' (Yerse 6.) By consequence, a church of 
 Christ is a distinct section of like individuals, specially 
 joined together by peculiar ordinances and forms, and 
 by consentaneous agreement as to special interpreta- 
 
108 EXCISION FROM A CHURCH NOT FINAL. 
 
 lions of holy Scripture. It will follow that so long as 
 the Divine conditions of communion are observed and 
 acknowledged amongst each other, churches may 
 adopt other and humayi conditions, so long as they 
 are adopted in accordance with the primary principles 
 laid down ; and it will follow, also, that the putting 
 away or exclusion of an individual from a distinct 
 congregation or community does not necessarily imply 
 excision from the body of Christ, still less from the 
 kingdom of God. He may be put away for a perse- 
 vering violation of a peculiar compact of order. But 
 if the offence be perpetrated in the schismatic spirit 
 so severely reprehended in the Epistles, it is so far a 
 breach of the law of Christ, and may endanger his 
 pacific relation to Christ. All that is meant here is, 
 that this relation is not alsolutely terminated by his 
 separation from a distinct and voluntary communion. 
 A Eomanist might be separated from the commu- 
 nion of his brethren for the neglect of Mass, and pro- 
 mulgating Protestant opinions ; an English Church- 
 man, for persisting to teach in unconsecrated places, and 
 repudiating liturgical forms, and the like ; a Congre- 
 gational Dissenter, for agitating liis church with 
 notions contrary to its order or its theory of Christian 
 liberty; a Wesleyan, for refusing to submit to the 
 established discipline of the body : and it is easy to 
 conceive of anv or all of these so conducting' them- 
 selves as not to lose the spirit, or forfeit the character, 
 of a Clu-istian, — especially in the first instance, where 
 fidelity to the word of God would require the course 
 indicated. But if the primary laws of the church's 
 Sovereign, which enjoni charity, truth, and peace, be 
 contemptuously broken ; if lyhig, slander, malice, and 
 
SPIRITUAL PATEENITY OF THE ^TSLEYS. 109 
 
 evil surmising, be brought to bear on the schism, and 
 the Lord Himself shoidd confirm the act of excision, 
 and make it extend to repulsion from His family ; 
 then this is another matter, — a serious possibility. 
 
 § YIII. It will not be difficult, then, to show 
 that Wesleyan Methodism has grown up in harmony 
 with, and, indeed, under the inthience of, these prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 The first Societies were not composed of persons 
 who voluntarily consorted together in prayer and 
 fellowship, and then appointed John and Charles 
 Wesley to be their pastors. They were the subjects 
 of a spiritual awakening, which had been brought 
 about by the preaching of these eminent Ministers ; 
 their resorting together in prayer and fellowship was 
 the result of the pastoral or fatherly direction and 
 appointment of these same Wesleys ; and by them, as 
 instrimients, they were subsequently made Cliristians, 
 in the full sense of that oft-abused title. 
 
 Tlie spiritual children had a claim upon their 
 fathers in the Gospel for nurture and edification : this 
 claim was acknowledged. The people were divided 
 into Classes, and watched over in the Lord. As they 
 increased, one of their number in each Class, more 
 experienced than the rest, was appointed weekly to 
 advise and exhort them, he and they being alike 
 instructed and advised at the quarterly visitation of 
 the Minister. Some of the flock became the subjects 
 of a powerful inward constraint to engage in the same 
 evangelizing work ; and, presenting themselves to the 
 brothers, who were now Pastors in chief, their minis- 
 terial call was acknowledged, and they were separated 
 as sons in the Gospel. These sons became spiritual 
 
110 OBEDIENCE TO NEW-TESTAMENT PEINCIPLES. 
 
 fathers in their turn, and they were admitted to joint 
 ministerial counsels accordingly, as they took part in 
 sustaining ministerial responsibilities. INTo jDui'pose 
 at first existed of separating from the Church of 
 England ; but this event, in the far-gone secularity of 
 tlie Establislunent at that period, was inevitable. By 
 the exclusive acts of the Clergy of that day it Avas, 
 indeed, compelled; and the distinct and exterior 
 organization of the Wesleyans took place. 
 
 It is not the purpose of this present work to dis- 
 cuss this question, or defend the act of separation : 
 this has been done abundantly in other writings, — 
 even leaving out the history of the period, which 
 shows that the Societies, and especially the Preachers, 
 were moxQ fugati ihsm fugitivi ; for the administra- 
 tion of the Lord^s Supper by their own hands was 
 forced upon them. Our business is to show that a 
 community, full of new Christian life, gradually made 
 progress under the principles recognised and illus- 
 trated in the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles, in 
 addition to those which were taught by Christ Him- 
 self. The Society of a principal town then became a 
 church; and, as it increased, it included several 
 minor assembhes or societies in its aggregate whole, 
 which whole often met together in one place, as at 
 the love-feast, or the renewal of the covenant, or the 
 Lord^s Supper ; or rather, tliis whole was constituted 
 by the several societies being knit or imphcated to- 
 gether under one united pastorate, or presbytery, of 
 several Preachers ; and these societies being combined 
 into Circuits, and these Circuits again united under 
 the Conference, the entire ecclesiastical body was 
 constituted. 
 
.ABSTRACT HIGHTS A CHIMERA. Ill 
 
 § IX. The Minister amongst ourselves admitting, 
 according to Christ^s ordinance,, to Christian member- 
 ship a youth from some Sunday-school, — if it be not 
 rather, from some gay circle in the world, — or a man 
 from some ignorant and degraded sinfid course in low 
 associations, — does not deem that he is receiving a per- 
 son who claims an inalienable right to take a share in 
 the c:overnment of the communion which he is entering*. 
 The applicant owes it to the ministry of God^s word that 
 he is disposed and longs to enter, and accounts admis- 
 sion to be a privilege ; and if he find salvation, he vdW. 
 owe this, too, under God, to the ordinances, and those 
 who administer them. So likewise in admitting, with 
 common concurrence, office-bearers who are foUow- 
 inj? their secular callings, to assist him, notwith- 
 standing their position among worldly things, in the 
 sen-ice of the church, accordingly as they may be 
 able, or have opportunity ; and never does he deem 
 that he is transferring his peculiar liabilities to them, 
 however their concurrence is invited and sought for. 
 Before the candidates of either class can say anything 
 as to a right, they have to look to the responsibility 
 of their debt. If they have received nothing from the 
 church which they wish to enter or labour in, they 
 are intruders, or, at least, out of their right place : if 
 they owe to its instrumentality their regeneration, — 
 their religious joys and hope of heaven, — it has a right, 
 through its scriptural constitution, in the first place, 
 rather to command them, than a call to be commanded 
 by them; and whatever share they may have in 
 administration, this is a position to be won, as our 
 Saviour shows, by fidelity, wisdom, and love, and not 
 demanded on some baseless theory of abstract right. 
 
113 HISTOEICAL PRINCIPLES EE-APPLIED. 
 
 The anxious seeker for membership comes to be 
 instructed^ encouraged, fortified against temptation 
 and sin; and thus he needs the pastor^s expository 
 feeding and counseb the watchman^s jealous care, the 
 steward's direction as to his work in the household. 
 The candidate for ofdce comes to make some return 
 for past benefits, to lighten ministerial toil, and, per- 
 haps, if faitliful, to be the subject of ministerial call 
 himself, and thus made to contribute publicly to the 
 increase of the kingdom of God. 
 
 Once more we are cast upon our fundamental 
 axiom, — that, in order to understand the true notion 
 of a church, we must look at it historically; that 
 is, in its origination and method of increase; and, 
 proceeding from it to the scriptural expansion of 
 the argument, we find, that our true t}^)e is a 
 HOUSEHOLD uudcr a Supreme Lord, and subordinate 
 stewards, whose sole work it is to labom^, occupy 
 themselves with the general charge, and watch for 
 their Lord^s coming. The AYesleyan system is con- 
 structed on this very principle ; and, although no 
 other condition is required of those who join the 
 Societies, than that '^ they have a desire to flee fi'om 
 the wrath to come,"*^ — thus making provision for the 
 lame, halt, and blind, according to the parable, — yet the 
 result of a dependent scheme of ordinances, founded 
 on the principle of a Divine caU to the ministry, and, 
 pro tanio, involving a constant succession of persons 
 in the pastoral care, and bringing evangelical energy 
 to the kingdom of God, is such, that no other Christian 
 communion has a larger proportion of true believers, 
 who, "walking in the fear of tlie Lord and in the 
 comfort of the Holy Ghost, are edified.'' 
 
ADAPTATION TO THE WORLD. 113 
 
 We deny not that other forms of church-order, 
 Congregational or Episcopal, may be so administered 
 as to secure the same end ; but our discourse is not 
 now of administration, which greatly takes its tone 
 from the quality and character of administrators : it 
 is rather of a poHty, — a polity originally unschemed 
 and unsought ; and that, too, as to whether it reflects 
 or refracts the Hght of the 'New Testament. Let the 
 preceding considerations, as far as they extend, furnish 
 the answer: and as to that loudest of modern cla- 
 mours, — that aU tliis is out of harmony with the spirit 
 of the age, — it may be said truly, there is much in the 
 Wesleyan regimen which is out of harmony with the 
 spirit of any or every age that the world has yet 
 seen; but this is no more than may be said of 
 Christianity itself, and therefore it is no argument. 
 If a Cliristian church in the world be not a 
 nuisance and intrusion, its proper relation to the 
 world, or society at large, is not that of harmony or 
 acquiescence, but adaptation, such as that of the 
 hospital to the sick, — of the fold to the sheep, — or 
 of the nursery to the plant. 
 
 And if there be no adaptation here to the most 
 needy portion of society, where the Gospel is con- 
 stantly preached to the ungodly ; where the very 
 expressed desire to escape hell and gain heaven brings 
 the applicant within the sphere of Clmstian s}Tnpathy 
 and aid; where the earliest gifts and energies of the 
 converted soul may find a sphere, under superior 
 direction, for being exercised in behalf of others; 
 where the most humble and lowly may have provision 
 for actual and edifying Christian communion tlirough 
 the medium of their own home-thoughts and honie- 
 
 L 
 
1 14 APPENDIX. 
 
 illustrations^ until they are raised by tliis very exercise 
 to a higher state ; where the exigencies of Christ^s king- 
 dom are provided for, whoever stands or falls ; where 
 the purity and peace of the household are secured by 
 discipline, without saying or believing that such dis- 
 cipline is always and necessarily the act of suspension 
 or exclusion from the privileges of the kingdom of 
 heaven, putting man in the place of God ; — then it is 
 difficult, if not impossible, to know in what adaptation 
 consists. If a general clamour be raised against the 
 Wesleyan polity, and the prevalent cry be, JDelenda est, 
 "Let it be blotted out," a calmer and more serious 
 review will show, that if a living Christianity be 
 maintained in the world, something exceedingly like 
 it must necessarily take its place. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 Note (A), page 93. 
 
 Dr. Davidson quotes the following sentiment from Grotius, in 
 support of the notion, that all communities have a natural and in- 
 herent right to manage their own atfairs, and choose their own officers : 
 " Ab ecclesid electionem rede fieri probatur ex jure naturali. Nam 
 naturaliter coetid unicuique permittitur ea procurare qtice ad conser- 
 vationem sunt necessaria ; in quo numero est functionum applicatio. 
 Ita vectores mtiiti jus habent eligendi gubernatorem navis sua, 
 viatores itineris ducem, populus liber regem." — Be Imp. sum. 
 Potest., p. 258. 
 
 If no more is meant than that a Christian people have a right to 
 give tlieir testimony and opinion as to whom God chooses by His 
 special call, then the above is allowable and harmonious with the 
 Gospel scheme : but if this meaning be put upon it, — that Pastors (for 
 these are the persons in question, and not Diaconal officers) are 
 absolutely chosen and appointed by the people, and to the people are 
 amenable for their conduct, as a pilot is to the passengers who 
 
APPENDIX. 115 
 
 appoint him, or as a leader aud guide to the travellers who put him 
 in that position, — then these illustrations, and the doctrine they 
 illustrate, are at fault. They are contradicted by the Scripture 
 illustrations ; that of the steward whom his Lord makes ruler over 
 the household, and that of the shepherd whom "the Holy Ghost 
 hath made overseer of the flock." A Christian church is not an 
 ordinary, not a self-made, community : it owes its existence, as such, 
 to others ; and they, by Divine appointment and institution, have 
 some claim upon its deference. 
 
 I 2 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DIVINE VOCATION AND SEPARATION NECESSARY TO 
 THE PASTORATE. 
 
 "The same office comes from Clu-ist to the end of the world. 
 Though the persons that first received the commission were to 
 continue but their own short time, yet the commission is con- 
 tinued to such as should in several ages succeed them, and still 
 from Christ ; but by other appointed means, which He hath 
 settled, and which remain stated in His church ; those that are 
 in that office of Preachers or Ministers themselves, conveying it 
 to others, who shall, according to fixed Gospel rules, be found 
 qualified for it." — John Howe, " I\meral Sermon on the Rev. 
 Mr. Peter Vink." 
 
 § I. Feom the considerations already mentioned it 
 will follow, that the theory which makes the origina- 
 tion of Ministers a mere conventional or church 
 arrangement is seriously unsound and faulty. If 
 candidly regarded,, it recognises no standing provision 
 '^for the perfecting of the saints, the work of the 
 ministry, and the edifying of the body of Christ/' 
 — ^that is, no class of men united in special fellowship 
 and counsel for this great purpose. "Wliatever may 
 be the gifts and graces of any ordained person, or 
 whatever the richness of his spiritual unction^ it re- 
 duces him to the condition of a private Christian, the 
 moment he steps beyond the sphere of the congrega- 
 tion which appoints him : or, if failing health should 
 render him unable to bear the full charge of public 
 duty, and another must needs take his place, tlien 
 again, though he may serve his Master with the rem- 
 
RESULTS OF FALSE THEORIES. 11? 
 
 nant of liis strength, lie is a Minister no longer. 
 Besides, in such a case the obligation to sustain and 
 extend Christ's kingdom in the world lies on anv 
 one, or every one, in the Cliristian community, — 
 justly so, no doubt, in the sense of requiring every 
 one to serve Clirist according to his relation and 
 ability: yet if that community be devoid of official, 
 primary, and motive power in the person of its spi- 
 ritual stewards, then, as universal experience has 
 taught, it will be nearly the same thing practically as 
 lying upon no one. 
 
 It is, indeed, sometimes admitted in words, that 
 the ministry is of Divine appointment; but such 
 words often mean no more than tliis, — that God 
 intended that His people should choose Ministers ; 
 and that, if they chose them according to His will. He 
 would verify His promise of granting them His bless- 
 ing : no more, in fact, than might be said of any 
 good thing, favourable to our spiritual interests, which 
 we might choose and use ; for all these, in this sense, 
 are of Divine appointment. Such a notion is far too 
 low. The Scripture view, Avliich I hope to make 
 evident, is, that Christian Ministers are the subjects of 
 a Divine vocation."^ 
 
 § II. j^^othing can be argued from the import of 
 the mere term " called.''^ It is a word of such general 
 and varied application, as being equivalent to " bid- 
 den,'' " summoned,'' " named," " designated," that 
 its precise meaning in given instances must be gathered 
 from circumstances, such as these : — the person utter- 
 ing and the person receiving the caU; the end or 
 
 * See Appendix, Note (A). 
 
118 FORCE OF THE TERM " CALLEd/' 
 
 j)ur])Ose for whicli it is givcii^ and the jimount of obli- 
 gation which obedience to that call involves ; and the 
 position in which it places him who obeys, as con- 
 trasted with an indiflercnt person. Thus it is said of 
 our Lord by St. Mark, tliat " He goeth up into a 
 mountain, and calleth unto Ilim whom He woidd : 
 and they came unto Him. And He ordained twelve, 
 that they should be with Him, and that He might 
 send them forth to preach.''^ (Mark iii-. 13, 14.) In 
 harmony with this, St. Paul speaks of himself as 
 /cXt/to?, " called to be an Apostle ;" (Rom. i. 1 ;) 
 which calling he further explains as being " separated 
 unto the Gospel of God -." like the Twelve, he was to be 
 away from other concerns, and with Christ. And 
 Timothy, the representative of the " man of God,^^ is 
 exhorted not to entangle himself with the affairs of 
 this life, that he may please Him who hath chosen, 
 or called, him to be a soldier. (2 Tim. ii. 4.) The 
 verb is arpaToXo^eco, which implies rather compul- 
 sion, or autlioritative appointment, than mere invita- 
 tion. All men — that is, those that are afar off, and 
 those that are nigh — are called to the Gospel feast, to 
 the obtaining of salvation by Jesus Christ, as contrasted 
 with the case of those who came to their church privi- 
 leges through their descent from Abraham : but when 
 elect Christians themselves are separated and appointed 
 by a super-vocation to a function which involves 
 something beyond mere membership in the church 
 and the adoption of sons, then a new relation is 
 created, — a new responsibility. 
 
 In turning to Heb. v. 4, wliich says, " No man 
 taketh this honour" (/. e., that of priesthood) "to 
 himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron," 
 
FORCE OF TEIIM3. 119 
 
 we should of course deny the identity, as to office, of 
 the Jewish Priest and the Christian Minister. No 
 man, except the Man Christ Jesus, is called to be 
 'le/jeu?, "aPriest,'' which means a mediator with God: 
 but still, if the same expression, ^' called of God,-*' be 
 used in reference to the designation of a Christian 
 Minister, which is used in the authoritative designa- 
 tion of Aaron and his sons, why should not the con- 
 clusion be valid, that the appointing authority — that 
 to which the called person is amenable — is the same, 
 namely, not the congregation, but the Lord ? " Call- 
 ing^' implied no particular manner of designation: 
 that of the Priest was by family descent from Aaron ; 
 that of the Christian Minister, by means more in 
 accordance with the dispensation we are under, — by 
 the gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost ; but still the 
 assence in both cases lay in the summons by a Divine 
 authority, and a requirement to abide entirely at the 
 disposal of that authority. 
 
 " The Holy Ghost said,'' (Acts xiii. 2,) in reference 
 to a particular evangelizing enterprise, that which we 
 shall have reason to infer He says with respect to the 
 office and charge of the Ministers of the New Testa- 
 ment in general : " Separate me Barnabas and Saul 
 for the work whereunto I have called them." Calling 
 and separation are here again concomitant : and to 
 those who say that to the Apostles and their com- 
 panions, extraordinarily gifted, this position might be 
 accorded, — that of acting under a Divine call; but 
 that ordinary Ministers may not pretend to anything 
 of the kind, — it might, if we had nothing inore to 
 urge, be a sufficient answer to reply, that while each 
 Apostle whom our Lord addresses in Matthew xxiv. 
 
120 PARABLE OF THE STEWARD. 
 
 45j and Luke xii. 42, is regarded as a steward over 
 his household, (Luke, " servants,^^) yet the assumption 
 that the Apostles solely are concerned is refuted by 
 the very structure of the parable. Stewards are urged 
 to fidehty from a consideration of the certain coming 
 of the Lord at an unknown period of time ; and there- 
 fore such stewards must needs be in existence, through 
 constant succession of persons in their office, until 
 that event takes place. There cannot be successive 
 responsibility without successive individuals to bear it. 
 Whatever interpretation be put upon the Advent 
 spoken of in this verse, — whether it be referred to the 
 last judgment, or to some period antecedent, and it be 
 less literally understood, — still it is one in which the 
 Apostles and their companions cannot be exclusively 
 concerned, inasmuch as a household was to be consti- 
 tuted, and regularly suppHed with nurture, as the 
 Lord was to be regarded as delaying His coming dur- 
 ing a long absence, and on the occasion of that coming 
 the faithful servant was to be elevated to higher rule 
 and rewarded. All this was not reahsed at the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, — an event which is rather 
 called " the sign of the coming of the Son of Man," 
 than that coming itself. The parable looks through 
 the roll of ages, regards the successive Christian minis- 
 try as the steward, — faithful or unfaithful, as the case 
 may be, — and the coming of the Lord, the one great 
 occasion of solemn reckoning with those who sustain it. 
 Eemarkably enough, St. Luke informs us that Peter 
 asked of Christ the very question which is by implica- 
 tion treated in this chapter : " Lord, speakest Thou 
 this parable unto us,^^ (Apostles,) "or even unto all ?" 
 (Luke xii. 41.) And our Lord, without giving a direct 
 
FAITHFUL MEN. 121 
 
 answer to the question^ in order that others might 
 not be led to shght the lesson in its universal applica- 
 tion, continued the discourse in such terms that the 
 Apostles could not doubt they were intended, refer- 
 ring as He did to their having been, in comparison 
 with others, specially taught His will, and thus having 
 had much committed to them : besides which, when 
 He altered the direction of His discourse, the Evan- 
 gelist marks that alteration by noting, " And He said 
 also to the people'' (Verse 54.) Thus the Apostles, the 
 first stewards, receive a charge which is coincident 
 with their calling ; and yet all stewards, to the end of 
 time, are held to the fulfilling of that charge, showing 
 that they are like^^dse partakers in the calling. It 
 was in this way of continually furnishing gifts for 
 the discharge of the obligations of that calKng, that 
 the Saviour^s promise was, and stiU is, fulfilled, " Lo, 
 I am \\\i\\ you alway, even unto the end of the 
 world.'' (Matt, xxviii. 20.) To the end of the world 
 the apostolic ministry is to be reproduced and repre- 
 sented. 
 
 § III. Passing to the teaching of the Apostles 
 themselves, we have seen how St. Paul, in E,om. i. 1, 
 blends the conception of the preaching office, — that 
 is, concretely, his calhng, — and that of being set 
 apart from the world, into one idea : and if we turn 
 to the place where he enjoins Timothy to commit the 
 charge of the Gospel only " to faithful men, who 
 should be able to teach others also," (2 Tim. ii. 2,) 
 we are bound in all candour to attach such a 
 meaning to the words incrToh av6 pdiiroi^ as must 
 necessarily have been conceived in the very heart and 
 soul of such a jealous executor of his Lord's last 
 
122 PECULIAH EXPRESSIONS. 
 
 will and testament. Clirist had counted him faith- 
 fulj putting him in the ministry, (1 Tim. i. 12,) in 
 calling him : and now this ministry is to be committed 
 to others who are faithful, that is_, trustworthy, to 
 fulfil the ends for which the Gospel commission is 
 given, and for which the Apostle demanded the offer- 
 ing up of life and of aU things. Paul must surely 
 be regarded as a fair interpreter of his own usus 
 loquendi; which, indeed, is no less Christ^s than his. 
 
 The force of those expressions used by the same 
 Apostle in 1 Cor. xii. 28, and Eph. iv. 11, — places 
 already quoted, — is to the same point. In the first 
 of these, not only Apostles and Prophets, (compare 
 Matt. XX. 23,) but the standing Teachers, are set in 
 the church by God ; in the other, not only Apostles, 
 Prophets, and Evangelists, but Pastors and Teachers, 
 are given by Christ. This language is peculiar : not 
 only are the latter class placed in the same position, 
 as to Divine appointment, with the first extraordinarily 
 gifted of the Ministers of Christ, but no such expres- 
 sions are applied to any other office-bearers. Here a 
 strong and clear line is drawn. Deacons, for instance, 
 are never said to be set in the church by God, or given 
 by Christ : no prayer was ever uttered in respect of 
 them to the effect, — " Show, Lord, which of these 
 men Thou hast chosen.''^ Then, again, in Acts xx. 28, 
 the same Apostle declares of the Ephesian Elders, 
 that over the flock of Christ, the church of God, the 
 Holy Ghost had made them overseers : and Archip- 
 pus is warned to fulfil the ministry which he has 
 received in the Lord. (Col. iv. 17.) Nor are all the 
 harmonious links of this truth connected yet ; for, if 
 the evangehcal Prophet Isaiah may be regarded as 
 
123 
 
 casting any light upon the evangelical system wliich 
 it was his especial work to announce and foretell, we 
 must take the testimony of what he heard and saw in 
 the temple, when he had a vision of the Lord of 
 hosts. (Isai. vi. 1-12.) The voice that cried said, 
 " \Yhom shall I send, and who will go for us ?'' The 
 Prophet asserts this of the Father; (verse 3;) St. 
 John understands it equally of the Son ; (John xii. 
 41 ;) and St. Paul as truly refers it to the Holy 
 Ghost. (Acts xxviii. 25.) Here in its threefold unity 
 we understand the fulness of that authority, calling to 
 evangelical labour, without which no man may law- 
 fully go. So that the adorable Trinity in council 
 are pledged to bestow the gifts which Christ died and 
 rose to heaven to obtain; and when Isaiah, newly 
 pardoned and purged by fire, said, " Here am I ; send 
 me," we must take it as the answer which is always 
 made in the depths of the soul of him who listens 
 with reverence and fear to the momentous question 
 proposed by the indwelling Spirit. 
 
 But, although " the gifts and calling of God " are 
 to be regarded as involving each other and insepa- 
 rable, yet that calling is not to be restrained so as 
 to connect itself only with those peculiar gifts wliich 
 were enjoyed in the apostolical age. The expanse of 
 view opened out by the Prophef s vision, is too vast 
 to be concentrated upon half a century, — it is a vision 
 of ages ; and, to interpret it in accordance with the 
 Gospel commission, we must understand the voice as 
 speaking from the throne continually, and faithful 
 men as continually replying, " Here am I, send me." 
 If you ask, with the Prophet, "Lord, how long?" 
 the answer is, "Until the cities be wasted without 
 
124 ISAIAH^S VISION. 
 
 inliabitant^ and the houses without man, and the land 
 be utterly desolate/'' (Isai. vi. 11;) in one word, as 
 long as there is a remnant of human nature left to be 
 affected by Divine grace. It is not sufficient to say, 
 '^ True, there is something in this temple-scene which 
 resembles ministerial caUing, but that is all;" for the 
 resemblance in the case is of Divine and positive 
 arrangement. The manifestation is one of Christ^s 
 glory, and involves the glory of His administration : 
 it shadows forth in its august imagery the subject 
 contained in Isaiah^s book of prophecy ; namely, first, 
 the Mediator's high and inscrutable rule, in the vision 
 of the throne; next, the allegiance and service of 
 unfallen creatures, who are expecting His final tri- 
 umph and victory, in the vision of the seraphim ; 
 then the pardon and sanctification of fallen human 
 nature, in the application of hallowed fire to the Pro- 
 phet ; and, last, the declared purpose of mercy with 
 regard to the whole world, in the question, " Who will 
 go for us V Now the Gospel brings out all these 
 subjects from under that veil where prophecy neces- 
 sarily at first places them, into that clear light in 
 which they are now fomid. Why, theu, is the minis- 
 terial call to be an exempt circumstance ? Wliy are 
 all the other parts of the vision to have their fulfil- 
 ment in advancing Gospel ages, and this single cir- 
 cumstance of calling an evangelical messenger, to be 
 restrained to the solitary appointment of the Prophet, 
 or, at most, of the Apostolate? Surely the most 
 enlarged and consistent interpretation of the most 
 enlarged vision of the Holy One in ancient days, 
 justified as it is by subsequent history, is the nearest 
 approach to the truth. 
 
THE PHRASE ^^ PRIESTLY CASTE." 125 
 
 Wlien Neander, in his " Churcli History/' reasons 
 from the appointment of one High Priest in heaven, 
 and the abolition of the Jewish typical system, to the 
 conclusion, that a priestly caste in the ministry ceased, 
 and that all Christian believers have, in a mystic sense, 
 become priests unto God, having direct access to Him 
 to offer up the sacrifices of prayer and praise ; notliing 
 can be more in accordance with the spirit of the New 
 Testament. But if, under the ambiguous veil of 
 these words, " a priestly caste,'' he throws discredit 
 upon the notion of a class of men separated to 
 teach and guide the flock of Christ, he impinges 
 directly upon the truths we have just considered, — 
 truths which no criticism can honestly soften or 
 enervate. It is true, his discourse is directed chiefly 
 against the idea of monarchy in the church; and, 
 so far as this is concerned, we should yield our acqui- 
 escence ; but when he seems to draw a general infer- 
 ence against the notion of a pastoral order, simply 
 from the existence of varied ")((xpiayuaTa in the pri- 
 mitive church, the candid reader either mistakes his 
 meaning, or must deny the inference. If men will 
 be in love with a word, they ought to remember that 
 true Christians are " a caste," as distinguished from 
 the unregenerate. To abolish distinctions of this 
 order altogether, is to abolish the Bible. 
 
 The variety of gifts mentioned by St. Paul in 
 Rom. xii. 6-8, were developed by that grace of the 
 Holy Spirit which wrought, more or less, at the time 
 that Epistle was written, in all the community. This 
 church seems to have grown up so far with very little 
 of the personal teaching of the Apostles ; and, in its 
 early and unformed state, the want of more orderly 
 
126 THE EARLY CHURCH OF ROME. 
 
 and stated ministerial instruction — as was likewise 
 the case at Corinth — was supplied^ to a great extent, 
 by these special bequests to individuals. While, 
 however, this was one feature in an age of miracles, 
 and in harmony with their design, — specially so in a 
 city which was the centre of cultivated and palmy 
 Heathenism, — ^there are not wanting indications, even 
 in tliis Epistle, that there were some persons in the 
 church of Rome who chiefly sustained the charge 
 and calling of administering the doctrine and dis- 
 cipline of Christ ; as the salutation sent by Paul to 
 some who were once, and somewhere, his fellow- 
 prisoners, of note among the Apostles, and were in 
 Christ before him, whose influence among those 
 early believers was great; and the fact that 
 the obedience of that people was '' come abroad 
 unto all men,^^ — all look in this direction. Peace 
 they might have had, doubtless, for a while, and 
 mutual confidence and love, without any subordina- 
 tion to shepherds or stewards ; but hardly could they 
 have shown obedience, and that so widely known, 
 unless some had been there to whom it was rendered 
 as a duty. 
 
 If, however, there were no weight in these consi- 
 derations, what would seem worthier of the wisdom 
 and goodness of God, than that, in an infant church, 
 in the very heart of the world's influence, the gifts of 
 the Holy Ghost should at first be so variously given, 
 and so variously called into exercise ; that a kind of 
 normal institute should be exhibited, in which men 
 might watch the methods of Divine training; and 
 that Apostles and Elders, seeing individuals grow up 
 under the special nurture of the Spirit, might here- 
 
CALLING VIEWED AS A GRACE. 127 
 
 after be able practically to try the spirits, and recog- 
 nise those who were called of God to the work of 
 the ministry, as also to choose with wisdom those 
 who were fitted for the subordinate offices of the 
 Cliristian household? Surrounded as they were by 
 Heathenism and Judaism, everything in Christianity 
 was new, and required the prompting and aid of the 
 Spirit. No man, indeed, could say that Jesus was 
 the Lord, considering the responsibilities and perils 
 of such a confession, but by the Holy Ghost; (1 Cor. 
 xii. 3 ;) any more than he could believingly adopt 
 the confession itself: and therefore here it seems 
 plainly tp be intimated, that church-polity should 
 allow free scope for the development of all sacred 
 gifts, in a true liberty of prophesjdng or exhortation, 
 and that, in this sphere of Christian liberty, with its 
 manifest fruits, we can alone find those upon whom 
 the Lord has evidently laid His hand, with reference 
 to their entire consecration of time and talents to His 
 service and that of His people. 
 
 § IV. This grace of ministerial vocation, like most 
 other spiritual graces, has its inward and its outward 
 aspect. The call, so far as it is inward, must, from 
 the very natm-e of things, be at first a secret with him 
 who is its subject, — a part, indeed, of that " secret of 
 the Lord " which is " with them that fear Him, and to 
 whom He will show His covenant.^'' (Psalm xxv. 14.) 
 AMiile the Scripture declares the fact, it satisfies no 
 external curiosity as to the manner : the manner, 
 indeed, of spiritual operations is altogether unknown, 
 as are all the ways in which the sons of God are led 
 by the Spirit of God. And certainly Wesley ans, and 
 all other Christians who acknowledge, with Bishop 
 
128 CALLING VIEWED AS A GEACE. 
 
 Pearson, that it is the office of the Holy Ghost to 
 create witliin our hearts a sense of the paternal love 
 of God, cannot decry this special motion of the Spirit 
 on the ground that it is fanatical. It is no more 
 fanatical than the idea of testimony to our adoption : 
 it is, to all such, a possibility. 
 
 If men are conscious of an inward moving which 
 bears them onward against difficulties in fulfilling 
 the purposes, and gaining the objects, of a Hterary, 
 political, commercial, or professional career, — a 
 moving, under the influence of which the strong will, 
 or powerful soul, throws off everything which impedes 
 its progress and action in pursuits which are congenial 
 to human nature, — the mysterious origin of the im- 
 pulse is never allowed to weigh against its reality. 
 Much more, then, may a person deem himself called 
 of God, when, in addition to the usual desires and 
 aspirations which flow from spiritual life, he is the 
 subject of a continuous and sacred constraint to direct 
 all his thought and energy to the great object of 
 saving souls from death, and building up the church 
 of God ; for all this is in direct harmony with the mind 
 of God. The other kind of moving, indeed, proceeds 
 from the God of creation and providence, and is a 
 part of His arrangement for the ordering and com- 
 pacting of human society : and so men have come to 
 say, in ordinary language, that the main and absorb- 
 ing work of any one, as that of physician, .soldier, 
 or artificer, is his "calling." Much more must an 
 impulse which leads the soul away from all eartlily 
 delight, and moves toward objects which Christ^s 
 own mind alone, as being, in a singular sense, con- 
 cerned for human salvation, perfectly appreciates, be 
 
CALLING VIEWED AS A GRACE. 129 
 
 regarded, not as a taste, a bias, a tendency; but as 
 an inward moving of the God of grace, — a " call;" 
 and the work to which it leads, a " calling/' It is 
 an impulse to enter alike into the sorrows and joys of 
 the adorable blaster, in order to accomplish His work. 
 Here, certainly, none can come to that Master with 
 such a purpose in view, except the Pather draw him ; 
 (John vi. 44 ;) the very point of light in which St. 
 Paul seems to view the matter in Col. i. 23, 24 : "I 
 Paul am made a Minister; who now rejoice in my 
 sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of 
 the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's 
 sake, which is the church;" in which words of 
 the Apostle, George Herbert thinks, and tersely 
 says, *^^is contained the complete definition of a 
 Minister."^ 
 
 Nothing in all this can be fairly taken to throw 
 discredit upon the notion of training men in literary 
 and theological culture for the sacred office. Let it 
 be granted that there is good evidence of the vocation 
 before the training commences ; and then that exercise, 
 if rightly conducted, Avill only make the evidence 
 more plain. The work of God by the Holy Ghost, 
 upon the mind of a yet rude and unfurnished youth, 
 whom He intends for the ministrj^, is an operation 
 infinitely more delicate, and recondite, and distinctive, 
 and decided, than any wliich science or society can 
 bring to bear ; and therefore, the work of the theo- 
 logical school is not to produce the original impress 
 of ministerial designation, but to develop, beautify, 
 and make it clearer. We are told that our fairest 
 cultivated plants and flowers have, in their wild and 
 * "Country Parson," chap. i. Edition of 1838. 
 K 
 
130 CALLING VIEWED AS A GEACE. 
 
 natural state^ all tliose delicate pencillings which mark 
 their distinctive genera and species, in as great per- 
 fection as ever afterwards ; the scientific care and the 
 richer soil only bring out the Almighty's lines and 
 letters into more impressive aspect and relationship. 
 And this analogy is most surely found to exist among 
 those products of the new creation which we are now 
 considering. 
 
 Outwardly, the existence of " this grace given '^ is 
 soon revealed : the arrangements of Divine Providence 
 as to the secular position of an individual, his ever- 
 recurring abstraction of mind from secular affairs, the 
 rapid growth of liis piety, following upon a decided 
 and clear conversion, the unction and authority of 
 his hortatory and intercessory exercises, his medita- 
 tive delight in the Divine word, and his pitying 
 interest in perishing men; still more, a noble and 
 evangelizing enthusiasm, — an ardent desire to spread 
 the triumphs of the Cross throughout the whole 
 world; — all these form a body of evidence wliich 
 cannot be contravened. Bishop Pearson expresses it 
 thus : " Quatemis est a Deo est interna, qnatenus est 
 per homines est externa"^ 
 
 Let us not be supposed to plead for a species of 
 prophetic impulse, like that professed and contended 
 for by the ancient Montanists, which repelled intel- 
 ligent investigation, and all attestation from without. 
 The Spirit's work in the present instance is a calmer 
 and, to the individual subject himself, more edif\^ng 
 operation ; acting upon the understanding, and gently 
 drawing the affections and will to their appropriate 
 
 * Minor Theological Works, vol. '\., p. 291. 
 
CALLING VIEWED AS A PRO VISION. 131 
 
 object. As Samuel did not at first understand ^aIio 
 it was that spoke to him when he was orally called, 
 and as St. Paul was at first disposed to argue against 
 his own vocation, so the chosen servant of the Lord 
 has often a trembling apprehension that he is not 
 right in his hiterpretation of what passes within ; and 
 a mere doubt on this subject produces a feehng Kttle 
 short of terror. But the hallowed constraint cleaves 
 to him, in spite of his fears and temptations ; and 
 though a part of his moral trial lies in the manner in 
 which he will deal with this sacred motion, yet the 
 Lord, sooner or later, seals His gracious commission 
 by granting liim assurance and fruit. 
 
 And if we are asked, " Are none to be deemed 
 Ministers of Christ and true Pastors but those who 
 are called according to this notion of vocation ?^^ the 
 answer is. To suppose that a succession of such 
 should fail, is to suppose that the kingdom of God 
 should come to nought, and that God^s own word 
 should fail : that they should be raised up perpetually, 
 is a condition and concomitant of the kingdom itself. 
 If they shoidd fail in a certain place, then the Gospel 
 candlestick is removed out of that place : but then 
 they appear elsewhere, kindhng another and more 
 abiding hght. History corroborates Scripture. Other 
 kinds of ordained men may be of the church, and of 
 the church accepted ; but they are ciphers in relation 
 to the kingdom; though these are matters which only 
 God Himself may strictly scan. Rome escapes all 
 theoretical difficulty by resting upon her bold and pre- 
 sumptuously assumed foundation, — namely, that her 
 incorporation is the kingdom ; and therefore, through 
 her sacrament of Order, professes to give the Holy 
 K 2 
 
132 SEPARATION A NECESSARY CONCOMITANT. 
 
 Ghost. The candidate in the Pontifical is never asked 
 if he be inwardly moved by the Spirit : the whole 
 office of the Spirit is usurped and materialised ; and 
 call, sanction, seal, unction, are all (alas ! can men 
 who read God^s word ever be brought to think so ?) 
 imparted ! In the cool frenzy of the infatuation by 
 which man sits in the temple of God, and in its 
 necessary mistake, these influences are arrested when 
 they flow, and invented where they are not found. 
 Bad spirits even demur to this kind of mockery and 
 conjuration, saying to every uncalled man, "Jesus 
 we know, and Paul we know : but who art thou V 
 
 § Y. Ministers, thus directed to the sacred office 
 by peculiar Divine interference, are, by the same 
 arrangement, separated from secular cares and pur- 
 suits. Theirs is not a profession wluch is taken up, 
 followed, and laid down, simply according to the will 
 of the professor, and which appeals for deference to 
 nothing higher than the knowledge that he may have 
 gained in his peculiar department : this is evident 
 from the scriptures we are examining. It is a peculiar 
 and extra-secular work ; not so much a single pulse 
 or movement in the functions of civil society, as a 
 selected ordinance for affecting from above the very 
 life and character of society. Thus He who gave 
 Apostles, so gave them that they " forsook their nets," 
 (Mark i. 18,) "forsook aU, and foUowed Him." (Luke 
 V. 11.) That this was to be a standing condition of 
 the ministry of the New Testament, is manifest from 
 the description, before quoted, wliich the Apostle Paul 
 gives of himself, long after Christ had been received 
 up into heaven : " Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, 
 CALLED to be an Apostle, separated unto the Gospel 
 
SEPAEATION A NECESSARY CONCOMITANT. 138 
 
 of God/^ (Horn. i. 1.) Here the three coiiditions we 
 have previously considered are specificall}^ mentioned : 
 separation is not an accident, but a proper concomitant 
 of the idea of calling in its present acceptation. An 
 Apostle, or any other servant of His wlio engages in 
 evangelical work, is liable to be sent to any spot on 
 earth, in order that all nations may be brought to the 
 knowledge of the truth. He is not chosen by a cer- 
 tain people merely to minister to their spiritual wants, 
 and in a way to suit their spiritual tastes ; he is chosen 
 by tlie Lord to carry on a militant struggle, taking 
 care, at the same time, to guard and garrison the por- 
 tions that are won from the enemy. This is the almost 
 uniform figurative representation of Holy Scripture; 
 and, therefore, he is required to go, not so much to 
 where he is sent for, as to where he is needed. 
 
 Accordingly, he must be freed from the care of 
 procuring the means of temporal subsistence. Like 
 Paul, he must be ready, as far as possible, to travel or 
 to sail. This separation, as the normal condition of 
 the ruling and teaching office, is further seen by the 
 manner in which the occasional labouring of the 
 Apostles in a secular function or trade is spoken of. 
 We read, in the Acts of the Apostles, (xviii. 3,) that 
 St. Paul, while he was in Corinth, abode in the house 
 of Aquila and Priscilla, and wrought at their occu- 
 pation, which was that of tent-makers; and, from 
 expressions in the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, 
 (1 Thess. ii. 9 ; 2 Thess. iii. 8,) it would appear that 
 he did the same, or something similar, in Macedonia. 
 
 These are the facts : and how does he treat them in 
 his epistolary communications ? The whole of the ninth 
 chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, which is 
 
134 CLAIM TO SUSTENTATION. 
 
 too long to quote liere^ is occupied in asserting and 
 enforcing the obligation which lies on the churches to 
 keep their Pastors free from the cares of providing a 
 temporal support. He declares it to be of the Lord^s 
 ordination. (Verse 14.) He claims the same right for 
 the Christian Minister, as was both claimed for and 
 conceded to the Jewish Minister : " Do ye not know 
 that thej which minister about holy things live of the 
 things of the temple ? and they which wait at the 
 altar are partakers with the altar ? Even so hath the 
 Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel 
 should live of the Gospel.''^ (Verses 13^ 14.) How can 
 this reasoning be understood, except on the ground 
 that the servants of the temple and the servants of the 
 church were equally called of God ; the one by a strict 
 hereditary selection, the other by the free motion of the 
 Holy Ghost ; the one to the priesthood, the other to 
 the spiritual shepherd^s function ; and that^ as the call 
 was in both cases equally authoritative, so the separa- 
 tion was as necessarily required? It is true, the 
 Apostle makes it a matter of honest glorying, (verse 
 15,) that, at Corinth, he had waved liis right, and 
 had supported liimseK, rather than become chargeable 
 to the church ; and for this he had sufficient reason ; 
 for the Corinthians, who were of a scliismatic spirit, 
 were wont, in several parties, to attach themselves to 
 individual teachers, each man saying, " I am of Paul, 
 and I of ApoUos," &c. ; (1 Cor. 1 12;) and they 
 would appear to do this with the more reason, if they 
 directed any contributions to the preferred and 
 selected teacher. St. Paul, who was concerned that 
 the supreme honour which was due to his Di^^ne 
 Master should not be obscured by deference to any 
 
CLAIM TO SUSTENTATIOX. 135 
 
 other name, declined to receive church-offerings at 
 this risk. He rejoiced that he had strengthened no 
 party by receiving anything at their hands, for the very 
 same reason that he thanked God he had baptized none 
 of them but Crispus and Gains. (1 Cor. i. 14, 15.) 
 But, if separation to the work of Christ and " living 
 of the Gospel ^' were not his right and proper position, 
 on what ground could he glory at aU ? Wiat had he 
 sacrificed or given up ? The same Apostle did not 
 refrain from pleading hard with these Corinthians on 
 behalf of the Christian poor at Jerusalem; for the 
 Achaians were not themselves generally poor, but 
 possessed of abundance. The temporary labouring 
 of the Apostle ^\^th his own hands rather affected the 
 inte^^ritv of the Corinthian church than that of tlie 
 separated apostolate or pastorate ; for when, after 
 aU his exertions, he still, during his stay at Corintli, 
 had been in necessity, and had received gifts from the 
 noble-minded Macedonians for the supply of his need, 
 {'Z Cor. xi. 9,) he asks, " What is it wherein you were 
 inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself 
 was not burdensome to you ? forgive me this wrong." 
 (xii. 13.) Other churches were superior, in that they 
 sustained their spiritual fathers in their proper posi- 
 tion; and St. Paul sorrowfully acquiesced in the 
 degi-adation of the Corinthians, and asked their for- 
 giveness for so doing. In the case of the Thessa- 
 lonians, too, when the Apostle wrought with his own 
 hands, that he miglit not be chargeable to them, he 
 is ccjually carefid. to guard what " the Lord hath or- 
 dained •/' saying, "Not because we have not power, but 
 to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us. 
 For even when we were ^\dth you, this we couunanded 
 
136 CLAIM TO SUSTENTATION. 
 
 you, that if any would not work, neither should he 
 eat/^ (2 Thess. iii. 9, 10.) It would appear, too, 
 that some time at Ephesus, (Acts xx. 34,) the Apostle^s 
 hands ministered unto his necessities ; but this would 
 doubtless be during the first struggle of persecution, 
 and while occupying the school of one Tyrannus : 
 (chap. xix. 9 :) and here the same reason is assigned 
 to the Ephesians for his conduct at tliis period, as 
 was assigned to the Thessalonians ; for he had to 
 instruct those who had been enervated and slothful 
 Pagan Asiatics in the Christian duty of diligence in 
 fulfilling their common tasks of life. " I have showed 
 you all tilings, how that so labouring ye ought to 
 support the weak, and to remember the words of the 
 Lord Jesus, how He said. It is more blessed to give 
 than to receive." (Yerse 35.) Thus every way, and 
 in view of the subject in all its particulars, the excep- 
 tion furnished by these incidents abundantly confirms 
 and strengthens the law of the case. When occasion 
 calls for it, and especially on foreign stations, even 
 now our oaati Ministers and Missionaries do not hesi- 
 tate to dig and plant, or to handle the implements of 
 the artificer and build : still it is not to introduce a 
 digging, planting, building ministry, but to show to 
 their reclaimed and converted people what labours 
 ought by them to be performed, and by them onli/. 
 
 § YI. The permanence of the law is also confirmed 
 by the precepts which the Apostles give to those who 
 now accompany, and will hereafter succeed, them. To 
 Timothy he saith, " Meditate upon these things ; give 
 thyself wholly to them ]" (1 Tim. iv. 15 ;) and to the 
 same Evangelist, after directing him to provide for the 
 wants of the churches, by committing liis ministry to 
 
CLAIM TO SUSTENTATION. 137 
 
 faithful meu, and to endure hardness as a good soldier 
 of Christ, he further, in a text which we must needs 
 repeat, lays doAvn this as a general principle, affecting 
 all such successors : " No man that warreth entangleth 
 himself with the affairs of this hfe ; that he may please 
 Him who hath chosen liim to be a soldier;" (2 Tim. 
 ii. 4 ;) in which place, as we have seen, there is hardly 
 a conceivable distinction between "chosen" and 
 " called." Again : the idea of a mihtary conflict is 
 still kept up, as where the Apostle himself says, " I 
 have fought a good fight, I have finished my course ;" 
 (chap. iv. 7 ;) and the exliortation, in other words, 
 runs thus : " Occupy not yourselves with buying, sell- 
 ing, and getting gain : you are in a disputed field ; 
 your Sovereign and Leader requires your undivided 
 time, absorbed attention, and unremitting vigilance : 
 the enemy is nigh, liis darkening hosts are gathering 
 round, and your one business is to get the victory -, 
 you have neither time nor care for anytliing else : 
 fight till the field is won ; for to die in the battle is 
 so far an earnest of the triumph." As Da\ad, the 
 anointed of the Lord, was a w^irrior-shepherd, assailing 
 the lion and the bear when they invaded his fold, or 
 prowled around it, so the spiritual guides of the New- 
 Testament flock are no less aggressive than pastoral. 
 An enemy has to be conquered, an enslaved world has 
 to be won. 
 
 So, also, w^e find in the New Testament no mention 
 made of Elders who followed a worldly calling. Aquila, 
 the tent-maker, who was successively at Rome, Corinth, 
 and Ephesus, — though he, with his wife, Priscilla, 
 taught the way of God more perfectly to the eloquent 
 ApoUos, — does not appear to have been an Elder, but 
 
138 THE PHRASE, "CALLED OF GOd/^ 
 
 a Cliristian Jew, who attaclied liimseK to the Hellenist 
 synagogues, and, as opportunity served, with Cliris- 
 tian freedom bore witness for Christ. As far as the 
 position of Elders, in relation to the rest of believers, 
 is referred to at all in Scripture, they are clearly seen 
 as separated, receiving from the church the supply of 
 tlieir personal necessities; yea, in some instances, a 
 portion wliich is described as " double honour." 
 (1 Tim. V. 17.) 
 
 It is not denied that there mlglit he Elders in the 
 primitive age whose circumstances were such as to 
 enable them to decline any contributions from their 
 flocks, or such as to qualify them for ministering to a 
 people who had not power to contribute. Such there 
 have been in every age : but here it is our concern to 
 see what is the rule or law of the case ; and, that law 
 being ascertained, there is, on the other hand, no plain 
 case of exception on the face of the sacred history. 
 Tlie warning of Peter that Elders should not take the 
 oversight of the flock for the sake of gain, is in full 
 evidence that those Elders ordinarily were separated 
 and maintained to do one work. 
 
 § YYL. It is clear, then, that the phrase " called of 
 God," as apphed to those who are summoned to act 
 under the Gospel commission, and who yield to the 
 summons, cannot wdtli propriety be applied to private 
 and intelligent Christians, who occasionally, or as 
 they may have opportunity, without neglecting their 
 worldly calling, exercise the gifts of teaching and 
 exhortation. It can only be used, in reference to 
 them, in a looser and lower sense. AU men are 
 required from a sense of obligation to serve Christ 
 with all the endowments that they possess ; and so 
 
NOT APPLICABLE TO SUBOHDINATE TEACHERS. 139 
 
 far this requirement may be deemed metapliorically a 
 call; and it will apply not only to Local Preachers 
 and Class-Leaders, but to various other influential 
 and active Christians, in respect of the use of their 
 talents. But the question throughout this chapter is 
 of a summons received from God and manifest to men, 
 of such a nature, and to such a work, that the 
 answer to it shall be the occupation of the whole man, 
 and of the whole life : and that the afhrmative view 
 of such a vocation can alone blend the several lights 
 of Scripture into one consistent and lucid ray, has, I 
 hope, been made sufficiently apparent above. This 
 alone is St. Paul's view of K\r]T6<;. 
 
 In times of schismatic agitation in a church, secu- 
 lar men often storm against the idea of a ministerial 
 class intrenching themselves under an authority which 
 they, the laity, do not appeal to, and on the ground 
 of a peculiar call which they do not profess ; and 
 jealous office-bearers and lay teachers, in such circum- 
 stances, refuse to acknowledge that their Minister's 
 vocation is anything higher than their own common 
 sense of duty. But all this only lasts while the period 
 of blinding passion lasts : vital Christianity cannot 
 be carried on in harmony with such views : those who 
 lay low the ministerial calling, do not thereby elevate 
 their own. They would keep the river, but take away 
 the rain-cloud and the fountain wliich feed it. Clouds 
 there may be without water, as described by St. Jude, 
 and carried \nth the wind ; but they are the chm'ch's 
 punishment, and not its necessary adjunct. The Lord, 
 sooner or later, vindicates His own doctrine. Churches 
 may exist as mere communities for a nmnber of years ; 
 but they cannot fulfil church-purposes for any length 
 
140 FOUNDATION OF THE PASTORAL SYSTEM. 
 
 of time, or to any available extent, unless they have a 
 head in the ministry so fraught with treasures of 
 wisdom, zeal, and love beyond other men, that life 
 through the medimn of this head is diffused through 
 the body j a secondary process to that by which all 
 are united to Clirist, the only Supreme Head. 
 
 § VIII. Acting upon the views expounded here, 
 the Wesleyan Conference, wliile it has encouraged the 
 exercise, under proper guards, of spiritual gifts 
 amongst the laity, in a manner analogous to that 
 referred to in the twelfth chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Eomans, particularly in making the most useful and 
 spiritually-minded to be Leaders of Classes and Local 
 Preachers, — thereby opening out a sphere of active 
 and subordinate duty in wliich it may be shown who 
 are indeed the Lord^s chosen servants, candidates 
 for the ministry invariably being taken from the latter 
 class ; it has nevertheless made a manifest call of God, 
 in the case of the candidate, a point of paramount and 
 indispensable necessity. The whole pastoral system 
 is based on this : it is a condition sine qua non. The 
 liighest human judgment, of course, may fail to test a 
 human being as to this matter j but nothuig less than 
 the highest, that is, the most severe, jealous, and 
 accurate, judgment that can be obtained is deemed 
 sufficient ; and therefore the examinations ^ prelimi- 
 
 * "Do they know God as a pardoning God ? Have they the love 
 of God abiding in them ? Do they desire and seek nothing but God ? 
 Are they holy in all manner of conversation ? Have they gifts as 
 well as grace for the work ? Have they a clear, sonnd understanding ? 
 Have they a right judgment in the things of God ? Have they a 
 just conception of salvation by faith ? And has God given them an 
 acceptable way of speaking? Do they speak justly, readily, and 
 clearly ? Have they had any fi'uit of their laboui* ? Have any been 
 
THE APOSTLES ON THE SEA OP GALILEE. 141 
 
 nary to ordination are adapted to this estimate of the 
 momentous character of the point to be ascertained. 
 If the questions be truly answered, they cannot fail to 
 repel the mere conventional or literary aspirant, or to 
 bring out the anointed servant of the Lord Jesus. If 
 they be falsely answered, — a contingency to wliich we 
 are less liable in proportion to the absence of motives 
 for dece])tion, and accordingly as the matter in test is 
 beyond all things else awful, — we are only in the 
 common condition of mortality, — that of occasionally 
 being deceived by unprincipled h^qoocrites, who, the 
 more surely tliey are unprincipled, are the sooner 
 unmasked. 
 
 § IX. Although it is not a law of interpretation, yet 
 it is consistent -with the spirit of interpretation, to regard 
 many of our Lord^s miracles and personal works as 
 ha\ang a mystic aspect, reflecting the acts and methods 
 of His spiritual administration. To this correspond- 
 ence between the seen and the unseen. He seems 
 Himself to refer, when, in reference to washing Peter's 
 feet, He said, " "What I do thou knowest not now, but 
 thou shalt know hereafter;" (John xiii. 7;) thereby 
 alluding to some more liidden act of His condescend- 
 ing love to His disciple, shadowed forth in that cere- 
 mony, which the Spirit was afterwards to make plain 
 
 truly convinced of sin, and converted to God, by their preaching? 
 As long as the above marks concur in any one, we believe he is called 
 of God to preach. These we receive as sufficient proof that he is 
 moved thereto by the Holy Ghost." — "Large Minutes," 1797- 
 
 Again : " Have you a lively faith in Christ ? Do you enjoy a 
 clear manifestation of the love of God to your soul ? Have you con- 
 stant power over all sin ? Do you expect to be perfected in love in 
 this life? Do you really desire and earnestly seek it? Are you 
 resolved to devote yourself to God and His work?" &c., &c. — Ibid. 
 
142 THE APOSTLES ON THE SEA OF GALILEE. 
 
 unto him. Clirisf s rescue of this same Apostle Peter, 
 when he was sinking in the Sea of Gahlee, is an 
 instance of this class. The previous miracle of feed- 
 ing the five thousand in the desert of Bethsaida would 
 prepare the Apostles, the instruments of the distribu- 
 tion, together with after-teaching, for dispensing the 
 bread of life to famishing multitudes. The absolute 
 constraint by which our Lord sent them away in a 
 ship to the other side, though night was drawing on, 
 (]\Iatt. xiv. 22,) would impress them with a sense of 
 His paramount authority to send them even into 
 conditions of danger, — that is, to utter His call. 
 The dark and stormy sea, with the contrary wind, 
 was as fitting a scene as nature could furnish of the 
 sphere of evangehcal and pastoral toil carried on 
 against the opposing wills and passions of mankind : 
 and there was Peter, of all the Apostles more particu- 
 larly the ministerial representative, cheered and re- 
 assured by the presence of his Master, whom he saw 
 walking on the waves. Longing to join his Master, 
 yet appalled at the scene before him, and knowing 
 his inadequacy to contend with the warring elements, 
 and trust himself to the yielding surface, he obtained 
 from that Master an authorising permission to do so. 
 He heard, obeyed, trusted ; and casting himself into 
 the sea, he, too, walked upon the waters, sufficiently 
 to show what by faith, and acting under a Divine 
 permission, he might do, in a given enterprise ; and 
 yet at the same time so as to learn the difference 
 between such an enterprise, undertaken by individual 
 will, and the course of a sacred calling. They 
 were all safe while they abode in the vessel in which 
 Clirist placed them ; and the impetuous Apostle was 
 
SPIRIT OF APOSTOLIC TEACHING. 143 
 
 only in danger when he departed from it, though with 
 a laudable design. Then he coidd only be saved 
 from the consequences of transient fear and unbehef 
 by the Saviour^'s real presence, and the ready rescue 
 of His hand. 
 
 If it be said that these are pious imaginings, let 
 the objector remember that the facts and doctrines 
 which suggest them are so many, and harmonious, 
 and implicated, that it would be almost as rational to 
 deny the existence of design in nature on which to 
 found an argument for the being of God the Creator, 
 as it would be to deny a similar design in revelation, 
 and especially in this department of it, pointing 
 to the being, character, and office of God our 
 Redee]MER, and the great Head of His church. 
 
 Under the influence of carnal and jealous tempers, 
 men judge of each otlier by a human standard, com- 
 ])aring themselves among themselves ; saying of their 
 fellows, " These men are very little better or wiser than 
 we ; and therefore their position and influence ought 
 to be no ways different." St. Paul rebukes this 
 mode of estimation, which might be acted on till all 
 sight of a divinely-authenticated standard was lost, 
 and dull level prevailed all over the household. 
 (2 Cor. X. 14.) He shows that to stretch beyond 
 the sphere of a given congregation is not to stretch 
 beyond the measure of the apostohcal ministry ; that 
 there is a largeness of heart in it which God alone 
 can give ; and a secret respecting it which man may 
 acknowledge, but God alone can judge. 
 
144 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note (A), page 117. 
 
 BELGIC CONFESSION. 
 
 " For every one must wait until he be called of God Himself, that 
 he may have a certain testimony of his vocation, and may know that 
 it is from the Lord." — Art. 1. 
 
 confession of sueveland. 
 
 " Hence it is manifest that the true and lawful INTinisters of the 
 chui-ch, such as be Bishops, Elders, (anointed and consecrated,) can do 
 nothing but in respect of this, — that they are sent of God." — " Har- 
 mony of Confessions," P. Hall, 1842, p. 280. 
 
 In harmony with the above is the question introduced into King 
 Edward's first Prayer-Book of the Church of England, proposed by 
 the Bishop to the candidate for Deacon's orders ; that Church 
 making the diaconate to be an order in the pastoral ministry: 
 " Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to 
 take upon you this office and ministry?" 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CHRISTIAN MINISTERS : THEIR NAMES AND IDENTITY 
 OF ORDER. 
 
 "And round about the throne four and twenty Elders." 
 
 (Rev. iv. 4.) 
 
 § I. The first designation given in the New Testa- 
 ment to the abiding order is, as we have seen, that of 
 " Pastors and Teachers -," the first term being the jFull 
 title of the office, the second a description of its prin- 
 cipal function. The term " Pastor/' or " Shepherd/' 
 would natui'ally awaken the remembrance of the 
 relation in which aU who had the charge of souls 
 stood to Christ, the Chief or Good Shepherd ; (John 
 X. ;) a relation, too, indicated by the words of Clu'ist 
 to Peter, " Peed My sheep,'' and, " Peed ]\Iy lambs." ^ 
 
 The use of it, likewise, by the Apostles, in all its 
 fulness of meaning, is strengthened by the import 
 given to it in the Old Testament ; where a Shepherd of 
 men was regarded as one whose charge it was to lead, 
 guide, and rule them ; making the main moral instru- 
 ment of his nde to be a far-seeing wisdom. Thus 
 the Propliet exclaims against the wicked ecclesiastico- 
 
 * The twofold title, " Pastors and Teachers," as applied to one 
 class of ^Ministers, (Eph. iv. 11,) stands iu analogy to the two- 
 fold manner in whieh our Lord charged the Apostle in John xxi. 
 10, 17 ; lii-st saying, Uoiixaive, "Shepherd My sheep ;" then, Bc^o-kp, 
 " Feed," or, " Teach them." 
 
146 OEIGIN OF THE TEEM " PASTOR." 
 
 political rulers of liis day^ "Many Pastors liave 
 destroyed my vineyard;" (Jer. xii. 10;) "Woe to 
 the Pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep :" (Jer. 
 xxiii. 1 :) and respecting himself, on being appointed 
 to a position of influence in evil times, he says, " I 
 have not hastened from being a Pastor to follow 
 Thee," Lord, "Thou knowest." (Jer. xvii. 16.) 
 But, looking forward to Gospel times, he declares in 
 these words the promise of the Lord to the spiritual 
 Israel : " I will give you Pastors according to mine 
 heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and 
 understanding." (Jer. iii. 15.) The idea of ruling 
 was inseparable from that of feeding ; so true was the 
 image to its antitj'pe. So the matter was understood 
 by the learned Jew Philo, who, although he might 
 invest his subject with some degree of Platonic 
 dreaminess, gave abundant evidence that he drew his 
 conceptions from the fountains of Scripture thouglit : 
 for he regarded the Shej^herd^s ofBce as appertaining 
 not only to Kings and sages, and clarified minds, but 
 to God, the Governor of aU ; and quoted the words 
 of the Psalmist David in support of this view : " The 
 Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want:" (Psalm 
 xxiii. 1 :) and then, describing the vast sweep and 
 extent of this pastoral administration, he refers its 
 executive embodiment to the Divine Logos, the Pirst- 
 begotten Son."^ 
 
 The same writer refers to a similar twofold meaning 
 of the title or simile, as used by the Gentile writers, 
 which no one who is acquainted with history can have 
 failed to observe ; for we have the Shepherd-Kings, 
 
 * De JgricuUurd, ad verba, Oyrw jU.eV tol rb Toifiaipeiv, k. t. A. 
 
THE TERM " PASTOR." 147 
 
 in ancient annals,, of every place where a patriarchal 
 rule was once known.^ This usage^ too, in the Xew 
 Testament is nnqnestioned ; as in Matt. ii. 6. 
 
 Besides this, it has been shown at great length by 
 Lightfoot, Vitringa, and Grotius, that the Chaldee 
 title of Tarnasim, or "Pastors," was given to an 
 order of persons among the ancient Jews ; and 
 although the former assigns to them a sort of custody 
 over eleemosynary affairs, yet the places quoted from 
 Jewish writers by Yitringa which clearly refer to a 
 governing function are so many, that no reasonable 
 doubt can remain whether they were not analogous 
 to those eminent persons who had been raised up by 
 Divine Providence in days previous to the captivity, 
 to feed and rule His elect nation. The dilierence 
 between Lightfoot and Yitringa, as we stated in a 
 note on Chapter II., is well reconciled, by concluding 
 that the eleemosynary office was often involved in the 
 higher, — a conclusion which is strengthened by the 
 fact, that wdien the Apostles first found themselves in 
 the pastoral position, even they had the charge of 
 alms for the poor, until they were relieved of this 
 bui'den by the appointment of Deacons. The Je^Yish 
 commentators, too, used the title Parnas, both nomi- 
 nally and verbally, in paraphrasing those places of 
 Old-Testament Scripture, where the Shepherds of 
 God's people were spoken of in the usual pure 
 Hebrew terms : and the title has been thought to 
 
 * 'Be C;/ro sigiUat'nn apud JIa.rimum Tj/rium : ' Cyrus rcf/ebaf 
 Fersas nt Pastor 2)ecora, servans gregem et nutriens! Ipsum Cgrum 
 officlum Regis muneri Pastoris contuUsse, author est Xenophon, 
 Cyrop., lib. viii., cap. 12," cf^c. — Vide LA^rPE, Com. in Joan. cap. x. 
 ii. So the well-known epithet in Homer, 'Ayafie/xvoi^a Txoijxiva Xomv. 
 
148 THE PASTORAL FUNCTION. 
 
 enter into the etymology of those Syriac names 
 which were given to the great eastern rulers and com- 
 manders ; such as PharnohMVi^, P/iarnas^es, Pkarna- 
 rathres^ Holop/iernes, and the like."^ 
 
 That the ancient Parnasim liad civil or judicial 
 functions to perform^ as well as religious^ need not be 
 doubted; as the theocracy^ which always blended the 
 two, left its impress upon the Jemsh institutions, 
 even until the nation was subverted by the Romans ; 
 and, indeed, as Yitringa elsewhere shows, the modern 
 synagogues had a council of lay Parnasim, whose 
 functions were ahnost entirely secular, having respect 
 
 * " Imo certum illud et extra dubium positum est, quhd vocahuhim 
 Parnas, 'prater primam et ordinariam, qiiam habet, significationem 
 pascendi, communissime ajnid Judaos notet Ducem, Frarfectum, 
 Giibernatorem, et Rectorem quemcunque. Philippus Aquinas : 'Par- 
 nas ejusmodi homo est, qui ducit et pascit homines, et cui quod- 
 dam est in illos imperium, cujusque voci obediunt,' Src \In 
 
 Taanith,fol. ix7\ Buos Pastores (Parnasim) bonos Israeli surrexisse, 
 
 Moseii et Bavidem, qui sciverunt or are pro ipsis, 8fc Antiquus 
 
 hvjus vocis apudSyros veteres usus est, tit, observante Bocharto, (In 
 Hieroz., cap. xliv., p. 443J plurima nomina magnatmn in oriente 
 ijde composita sint. 'In Chaldced,' inquit ille alibi, ' paraphrasi est 
 Parnas, sen Pharnas, quod et Rectorem seu Chibernatorem sonatJ 
 Itaque magnatmn in oriente nomina, tit Pharnobarus, Pharnaspes, 
 Pharnarathres, Orophernes, et in libro Judith Olophernes, ex 
 Suidce sententid, Cambysis apxicrrpdrri'/os, manifesta habent hujus 
 vocis vestigia." — Yitringa, Be Vet. Synag., pp. 631, 632, 636. 
 
 " Conchidam hanc dissertationem notatu dignissimis verbis mece 
 pariter opinio7ii faveritibus, qua leg ere est in Synopsi libri Sohar 
 in Latinam linguam conversd, in Tomo Secundo Kabbahe Bemcdatce : 
 ' Rectores Israelitarrim cum justi sunt, merentur accipere vitam ater- 
 nam, et comparantur variis rehus, e. g., Pastoribus ovium, et 
 similibus.' Boctissimus author (Lightfoot) vcrsionis vult ut con- 
 paremus verba Christi ad Pctrum, et Panli ad Ephesinos Presby- 
 teros : quod et ipsum nostra consonum est sententia." — Idemy 
 p. 640. 
 
THE TERM "ELDER." 149 
 
 chiefly to the care of the utensils of the synagogue, 
 and the collection of rates, and the like, beyond its 
 walls, while aU the spiritual rule of the people 
 devolved on the Ruler or Chief Rabbi. But as, in the 
 Cliristian Church, the civil power — namely, that of 
 compulsory rule — was now to disappear, therefore 
 magisterial lordship must not be exercised : so that, 
 while the name of Pastor is taken from the general 
 usage of the Old Testament and all ancient usage, as 
 describing those who feed and govern, the special 
 practice of the ancient theocracy and synagogue is a 
 standing testimony to the full import of the title ; 
 under wliich fulness of import, except so far as ci\il 
 rule is concerned, it historically transfers the office to 
 the evangelical institutions. And, upon the whole, 
 we may confidently conclude, that the Apostles would 
 not have applied an official title of Clirist to the 
 abiding order of Ministers in His church, unless they 
 meant to teach that His function should be imitated 
 by them; just as, in their ordinary walk as Chris- 
 tians, His own perfect human righteousness is held as 
 the example of their own redeemed humanity, — the 
 analogy being in both cases the same. 
 
 § II. The next name given to Cliristian Ministers 
 is that of 7rp6apvT€po<i, or " Elder," — a term which 
 the Hebrews in all ages have applied to their eccle- 
 siastical, teaching, and reUgious functionaries, includ- 
 ing the ancient Parnasim as well as all others ; and 
 which was so manifestly the name of the persons 
 composing the council of the synagogue, that any 
 attempt at the proof of this point is needless. AYe 
 can scarcely pass over a page of the historical por- 
 tions of the New Testament, but we come upon this 
 
150 THE TERM ^^ BISHOP." 
 
 fact; and we find the name used \Yitli like latitude 
 in tlie Christian church, and as including Apostles, 
 with their coadjutors and successors. (1 I'^m. v. 
 17; 1 Pet. V. 1-7.) The Jewish Elders are spoken 
 of by St. Luke, not as separate and isolated indi- 
 viduals, but as TO Trpecr/SvrepLov rod Xaov, "the 
 presbytery of the people/'' — a rectoral and teaching 
 body ; (Luke xxii. 66 ;) and ttuv to irpea/Syreptov, 
 "the whole estate of the Elders:" (Acts xxii. 5:) 
 and they were made members of this body by a 
 special ceremony and ritual. The Talmudists ever 
 regarded the office as of Divine designation, not 
 only from the history of the a])pointment of the 
 seventy Elders under Moses ; but they expounded with 
 that view, to the youth of the nation, the precept 
 of the law of Moses in Lev. xix. 32 : " Thou shalt rise 
 up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the 
 old man, and fear thy God:" so that the appellation 
 indicated the gravity and wisdom through mature age 
 of those who were first appointed to the office. This 
 is the idea which Cyprian and others occasionally kept 
 uj) l)y the use of the phrase " majores natu!' 
 
 § III. The other principal title is iirlcrKoiTo^y 
 " Bishop," which Neander, whom Dr. Davidson fol- 
 lows, thinks is derived from Greek usage, and was 
 the chief title of a chief Magistrate in the Achaian 
 communities. But although it may be allowed that 
 this title was actually borne by certain superior civil 
 officers in the Greek cities, and might be imposed 
 upon them very naturally from the plain and easy ety- 
 mological import of the word ; it is not likely that the 
 Apostles would borrow it from them, when there was 
 another suggestive authority so much nearer at hand. 
 
THE TERM "bishop/^ 151 
 
 and immensely more in accordance Avitli their mental 
 and spiritual sjinpatliies. The Septuagint Greek 
 version of the Old-Testament Scriptures, Avhicli they 
 usually quoted in their public and expository addresses, 
 makes use of the Avord eTrtV/coTro?, and its cognate 
 forms, in several places where a person having a 
 sacred charge is intended. Thus Psalm cix. 8, quoted 
 by Peter in reference to Judas, whose vacant place in 
 the apostleship had to be filled up : '' Let another 
 take^"* Ti-jv eiTLo-Koirrjv, "\\h Bishop's office/' In 
 Numbers iv. 16: "And Eleazar the son of Aaron 
 was " eirlaKoiro^, " Bishop in charge of the oil for 
 the light, and the sweet incense, and the daily meat- 
 offering, and the anointing oil, and the oversight of 
 all the tabernacle, and of all that therein is, in the 
 sanctuary, and in the vessels thereof." In 2 Kings 
 xi. 18: "And the Priest appointed officers,'' eVt- 
 (TKOTTov^, " over the house of the Lord." These 
 instances are sufficient ; besides which, so far as eVt- 
 crAco7ro9 is equivalent to irpoearaxi, another New Tes- 
 tament term, and signifying " one set over another," 
 " a ruler," Grotius shows (as well as Yitringa) that 
 these were terms of office applied by the Jews to the 
 heads of their synagogues, -wliich were exactly of the 
 same import and value. 
 
 The Apostles needed go no farther than to their 
 own sacred writings, and the religious practice of 
 their nation, in order to derive this oflicial name, 
 although the Greeks used it in its civil meaning, even 
 as we do its exact version, — " overseer," or " super- 
 intendent;" yet as aU the ancient rehgious applica- 
 tions of it implied an authority to investigate as well 
 as deal with affairs as they arose, its use as a designa- 
 
152 rOUCE OF VAEIED TITLES. 
 
 tion of Christian Ministers was especially to set forth 
 that spirit of loving and vigilant inquiry wliich 
 the new and holier dispensation needed, — that w^atch- 
 ing over souls as men that must give account."^ 
 
 § IV. Pastor or Teacher, Elder, and Bishop, being 
 the three (not the four) appropriated distinctions in 
 common of Christian Ministers, we see everywhere 
 that they are used interchangeably, and involve each 
 other ; that they refer to one order of men, possessing 
 the same general rights, and charged with the same 
 general responsibilities. The restriction of the term 
 " Bishop " to the chief or ruling Presbyter, the Pas- 
 tor gregis et Pastorum, was not an apostolical, but a 
 post-apostolical, arrangement, however that kind of 
 rule might be apostolically sanctioned under another 
 name — that of "angel,^' for instance. A careful medita- 
 tion on these well-known places, — 1 Peter v. 1, 2 ; 
 1 Peter ii. 25 ; Acts xx. 28 ; Phil. i. 1 ; 1 Thess. v. 
 12, 13; 1 Tim. iii. 2; Titus i. 7-9; Heb. xiii. 7; 
 vii. 17, 24, — will abundantly evince their identity. 
 As Pastors, they have to do with a flock ; as Elders, 
 they are denoted to have sufficiency of msdom and of 
 age ; as Bishops, they are obligated to examine and 
 inspect ; as Stewards, to take care of the Lord^s 
 household, and preserve the interests of His truth 
 unimpaired ; as guides and rulers who are over others 
 in the Lord, they are to direct and govern them, not 
 by blank personal authority, but by applying and 
 
 * " Neutiquam in universum vermn sit, quod Erasmus aHbi 
 notavit : ^iriffKoirelv non est inspicere cognoscendi caussd, qiwd ea 
 vox significat Latinis, sed advigilare nt de necessariis provideas. 
 Imo verb eTnaKoir^lp in loco, quern ex Josepho \Cont. Apion., lib. n.] 
 adscripsimus, est inspicere, cognoscendi caussd" — Viteinga, Be 
 Synag. Yet., p. 643. 
 
NO MEUE EULLN'G ELDERS. 153 
 
 enforcing the precepts of the Divine word : yet it is 
 still to one class of office-bearers that these functions 
 are assigned. In all the places of Scripture which 
 have thus been brought into review, no superiority, in 
 point of order, of one kind of Bishops or Elders 
 over another, is indicated, however varying grades 
 may be \drtually created by varying degrees of indi- 
 vidual goodness or by common consent. All the 
 titles are nsed of that office which comprehends the 
 care of souls, but of that office as viewed in its various 
 aspects : so that, whatever may be said, as we have 
 hinted, respecting any " first amongst equals,^' raised, 
 in apostolic times and with the Apostles' sanction, as 
 superintendent over his brethren, there is no root in 
 Scripture from which prelacy, implying superiority of 
 order, may grow. Tliis subject, however, it is not 
 our task to pm-sue. 
 
 § Y. And, in proceeding from the same stage in 
 our inquiry to another position, we say at once, that 
 there is a similar absence of any fact or testimony 
 tending to show a distinction between Elders, com- 
 prehended as such : that is, the New Testament 
 knows notliing of Elders who only rule, often called 
 "lay Elders,^' as distinguished from Elders who both 
 rule and teach. Eor, let the texts just cited be recalled 
 once more, and, indeed, all texts where ministerial 
 qualification is spoken of, and nothing can be more 
 plain than that the guidance or rule is altogether in 
 the hands of the same persons who teach ; nay, in 
 fact, that the one is ordinarily the instrument of the 
 other. The Elder has no guiding or authoritative 
 will of his own, but is rather Steward of the mysteries 
 of God, and versed in the law of Clirist ; and, apply- 
 
154 NO RULING ELDEHS. 
 
 ing tliat law, on occasions when economy and disci- 
 pline have to be exercised, he Mfils the rectoral 
 responsibility. There is no Elder or Bishop treated 
 of but he must be " apt to teach ;" must " feed the 
 flock/' and "hold fast the faitliful word;" must 
 admonish God's people, must take care of the church 
 of God, as a father does of his house, in ruling and 
 providing for it. (1 Tun. iii. 4.) No official person 
 is anywhere addressed as having to attend to govern- 
 ment or discipline merely ; and no rules are laid doAvn 
 to the Evangelists for their guidance in choosing such 
 persons : and how could this omission be accounted 
 for, if ruling Elders were designed by the head of the 
 church to be called forth to exercise such functions 
 as some would assign to them ? 
 
 § YI. It has been thought, however, by Presby- 
 terian writers, that there are several texts which look 
 favourably towards, and even recognise, this class of 
 office-bearers; and, for the clearer apprehension of 
 our subject, it may be well to give them a passing 
 examination. 
 
 The first is Eom. xii. 6-8 : '' Having then gifts 
 differing according to the grace that is giveii to us, 
 whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the 
 proportion of faith ; or ministry, let us wait on our 
 ministering : or he that teacheth, on teaching ; or he 
 that exhorteth, on exhortation : he that giveth, let him 
 do it with simplicity ; he that ruleth, with diligence ; 
 he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness." The stress 
 of the testimony is laid on the clause, "he that 
 ruleth," as distinguished from, "he that teacheth." 
 Now, if the existence of ruhng Elders had been else- 
 where plainly taught, this passage might in that case 
 
KOM. XII. 6-8 EXAMINED. 155 
 
 have been regarded as containing a harmonising allu- 
 sion to it ; but this is the utmost that can be said for 
 it. Brought forth as primary evidence^ it brings no 
 testimony at all. The Apostle is here discoursing of 
 those 'XjOipicriJbaTa, " gifts/' which were freely diffused 
 in his time amono- the members of the Christian com- 
 munity, indicating, accordingly as they were faithfidly 
 used, what persons were called and fitted for the pre- 
 sent exigencies, and future and permanent official 
 positions in the church ; these gifts and the sphere of 
 their exercise thereby constituting in this period the 
 Spirit's normal seminary : and the whole passage is 
 well explained by regarding it as an exliortation to 
 each gifted individual to cultivate with simplicity, 
 diligence, order, and proper subjection to others, that 
 particular bias which the Holy Ghost had produced 
 in his own soul ; so that, on the one hand, the church 
 might be edified, and, on the other, that it might be 
 manifest to all, who were the proper persons to be 
 subsequently chosen to fill places in the church such 
 as those of Evangelist, Pastor, or Deacon. 
 
 The ruling-Elder theory requires that the phrase 
 " he that ruleth " should involve the recognition of a 
 separate office ; and if so, every other clause in the 
 passage, to preserve consistency of interpretation, must 
 express a separate office likewise. What office, tJien, 
 is that of giving ? and that of showing mercy ? Who 
 are tlie givers and mercy-dispensers, as standing side 
 by side witli presbyterial lay-rulers ? Alas ! this will 
 never do ; for, if even established offices were recog- 
 nised, the peculiar bias and gift of ruling — taking 
 other places where the word occurs as evidence — 
 would no more exclude teaching as being merged in 
 
156 llOM. XII. 6-8 EXAMINED. 
 
 it, tlmn would tlie peculiar impulse aud qualificatiou 
 to teach exclude the governing faculty which must 
 naturally to some extent flow from such a power. 
 But in the free use of indi\adual acquisitions one 
 believer would develop a warm and teaching fervour ; 
 and thus here would be an incipient Exliorter or 
 Preacher : — another, a wise and discriminating use 
 of church-funds as ajDplied to the poor : here woidd 
 be a candidate, impartial and simple-minded, for the 
 office of Deacon : — while a third would give evidence 
 of a superior wisdom and enlarged comprehension, 
 with other tokens of a governing mind ; and to him 
 it would necessarily appertain to use this faculty, and 
 so far to rule, that is, by intelligent and loving mental 
 sway. These young eagles were to try their wings, before 
 they were fully committed to the stormy elements. 
 
 An illusory effect is sometimes produced upon the 
 minds of mere English readers, by the word " office,^'' 
 as found in the preceding description, in Rom. xii. 
 4, of the cliurch-constitution, where that church is 
 compared to a body, and Christian individuals to the 
 limbs or members of that body. The word '^ office " 
 by these, and very properly, is generally understood 
 in the sense of an assigned or responsible charge, or 
 round of established duty : whereas, as it occurs here 
 in our version, it must rather be interpreted in har- 
 mony with the simile, and taken to mean the func- 
 tions of private members, whoever they may be j^ and 
 
 * Thus Charles Wesley : — 
 
 " Never fi*om om* office move, 
 Needful to each other prove ; 
 Use the grace on each bcstow'd, 
 Temper'd hy the art of God." — TTymn 51 8. 
 
1 COR. XII. 28 EXAMINED. 157 
 
 all the more, as the word 7r/?affc9 everyivhere means 
 "deed/' '^act/' or "task Mfilled/' and never a 
 Steward's or responsible person's stated care. So 
 that, if ruling the church be intended by the words 
 " be that rideth/' they no more imply that this was a 
 distinct function which a given individual alone was 
 to fidlil, than that giving, exhorting, and showing 
 mercy, were tasks not to be executed by those who 
 prophesied, ministered, and taught. The whole 
 passage is "VAritten to show in what spirit and order 
 individuals were to employ and improve the Spirit's 
 gifts within them ; and there is nothing to contradict 
 the notion that the same body of gifted individuals 
 might interchangeably and successively fullil their 
 various tasks, accordingly as they were able, for the 
 benefit and edification of the whole ; until the church 
 acquired its established form and order, and the best- 
 endowed, or those who best used their endowments 
 and verified their call, were appointed to their stated 
 })ositions of duty. 
 
 § YII. Another place quoted is similar : 1 Cor. 
 xii. £8 : "And God hath set some in the chiu-ch, first 
 Apostles, secondarily Prophets, thirdly Teachers, after 
 that miracles, then gifts of heahngs, helps, governments, 
 diversities of tongues." Here the stress is laid on the 
 words '' Iiclps" and "governments/' as containing 
 the idea of Deacon first, and ruling Elders in the 
 other. The very general term " helps " occurs nowhere 
 else in the i\'ew Testament ; and therefore those com- 
 mentators who have been desirous to find for it a 
 distinct official import, have had no rule to follow but 
 that of imagination or previously-formed theory ; and 
 so we need not wonder at the multitude of their con- 
 
158 1 COR. XII. 28 EX.'lMINED. 
 
 jectures. The same may be said respecting the word 
 " governments/" whicli is nearly as general in its 
 meaning, and as fruitful in suggestions. Vast and 
 cumbrous learning, by English, Dutch, and German 
 divines, has been expended in this way to little pur- 
 pose : but on the part of system atisers there has been 
 this mistake committed all the way through, — the 
 attempt to draw a stereotyped form of church-order 
 out of those abstract terms M'hich, at the time to 
 which they refer, — a time when the Spirits power 
 was so predominant in Christianity, — were used to 
 express the varied kinds of influence, terminatively 
 considered, which affected at different times the 
 same persons, rather than as indicating separate indi- 
 viduals appointed to the charge of distinctly assigned 
 duties. 
 
 The theory we are opposing requires a cumbrous 
 and elaborate system of church-polity at the very 
 outset, quite contrary to the nature of things, and as 
 contrary to the facts of the apostolic history. Where 
 there are conflicting schemes of interpretation, then, 
 beyond all question, that which is most obvious and 
 open is to be preferred to that which is recondite or 
 elaborate : and it will be found that the true key to 
 the exposition of this verse is sufficiently simple, 
 without inventing here what no one will be hardy 
 enough to say it expresses, namely, ruling Elders ; 
 for any one may see by the Apostle" s phraseolog}', 
 that his main intention is to assert and enforce the 
 lAW OF ORDER. He saw difficulties arising, against 
 which the law of order could alone be brought to 
 bear : indeed, in the Corintliian clnirch, then in a 
 divided state, these difficulties had already risen. To 
 
1 COR. XII. 28 EXAMINED. 159 
 
 silence ambitious schismatics, he speaks decisively of 
 some persons who are fikst, of some who are second, 
 of some who are tiurd ; and then, when he has done 
 with persons, and refers to things, he enumerates 
 those good gifts of God, given for the edification of 
 His church, which follow in their proportionate and 
 relative vakie ; — gifts inhering in part, very likely, — 
 at least, as likely as otherwise, — in the very official 
 persons previously mentioned, as well as in other and 
 less eminent members of the communion : and all 
 this with a view of putting down subordinate matters 
 — that is, matters subordinate to a child-like recep- 
 tion of the Gospel tlu-ough the mechum of their 
 spiritual fathers — into a proper position; thus op- 
 posing the aim of the schismatic spirit wliich always 
 endeavours to elevate these last into the highest place. 
 But survey the descending scale, and mark its 
 heavenly wisdom. Pirst, Apostles, fathers of the 
 church, and commissioned immediately by Christ to 
 reveal His whole counsel : — second. Prophets, as 
 being full of the Holy Ghost, and sharers in the Avork 
 of laying the foundations of the faith : — thirdly. 
 Teachers, fraught with Christian doctrine; that is. 
 Evangelists, together with Pastors, as in Eph. iv. 11, 
 — the permanent class, so frequently mentioned in the 
 preceding pages, who have the charge of the flock of 
 Christ until the chief Shepherd appear, or who, if the 
 church be a building, edify it, and make it a temple 
 for God. This concludes the enumeration of persons ; 
 and "after that,^' says St. Paul, '^ miraclcs,^^ not 
 Christ's miracles, but the miracles of that day. These, 
 impressive as they might be, were of less vakie than 
 a holy and heaven-appointed ministry : they came 
 
160 1 COR. XII. 28 EXAMINED. 
 
 after in point of impoi-tance. Next follow " gifts of 
 liealins!:/^ as beinG; of a miraculous cliaracter. but 
 lower in the graduation ; then " helps,^^ and " govern- 
 ments/' — the words by our opponents supposed to be 
 so full of meaning. But if these last terms were 
 emplo^Td to designate any kind of economical or 
 disciplinary rulers of the flock of Clu-ist, this rule 
 must necessarily be understood such as would not in 
 the least degree interfere with, or set aside, that 
 pastoral oversight which is laid upon the Teachers 
 who are mentioned under the third particular ; else- 
 where called " Bishops/' "Pastors/' and "guides." 
 The whole paragraph is descriptive of the gradations 
 of order. Whatever it were, it must in such a case 
 be something much lo^ver than theirs, however in 
 some instances it might be associated with or merged 
 in it, and as well exercised by themselves in person 
 as by others. 
 
 But the fact is, the words do not appear to refer to 
 persons at all : they stand amid a class of terms in 
 one category, all implying things ; they are gifts, 
 miracles, healings, and the like : and as the disputa- 
 tious and wrangling Corinthians needed some provi- 
 sion for controlling and arranging their ])rivate dis- 
 putes, without involving the ^diole church in the 
 almost secular anxieties which would arise from 
 making common cause of them, we may well sujDpose 
 God gave to some men especial influence to control 
 and quiet litigious minds, and adjust the differences 
 which had fallen out between those who ought to be 
 bretliren. These and other appliances of help might 
 be of great importance, then, in the arbitration of 
 disputes; but, viewing the church of God as a whole. 
 
1 TBI. V. 17 EXAMITsED. IGl 
 
 and as provided for by gifts in perpetuity, were such 
 appliances, in relation to those gifts, and as being part 
 of them, nearly at the bottom of the scale; while 
 diversities of tongues, so often abused, were lowest of 
 all. So little countenance does the doctrine of ruling 
 Elders find fi-om this passage."^ 
 
 § YIII. The other place is 1 Tim. v. 17 : ^a.et 
 the Elders that rule well be counted worthy of double 
 honour, especially they who labour in the word and 
 doctrine.^^ Here it is inferred that, as amongst Elders 
 who ride well there are those who labour in the word 
 and doctrine, so there must be ruling Elders likewise, 
 who do not labour in the word and doctrine at all. 
 But this is a one-sided and lame inference : several 
 others, equally plausible, might, at the very first view 
 of the matter, be drawn from the passage; and the 
 reader is here specially requested to observe the state 
 of the argument. Two texts have been already 
 adduced, which are barely capable of being harmo- 
 nised with the doctrine of ruling Elders, supposing it 
 to be elsewhere briefly taught ; and now the amount 
 of evidence is sought to be eked out by an inference 
 which is only one out of several that are possible. 
 That this is not the correct inference, and consequently 
 not the true meaning, will, I hope, be made clear by 
 the following considerations : — 
 
 1. In all other passages, Avhere the quabfications or 
 functions of Bishops or Elders are mentioned, they 
 botli rule and teach. Wearisome as it may be to 
 recall this fact, it is necessary; and as it is an 
 undeniably good and sound rule of interpretation to 
 
 * Vide LiMBORCii, T/teoL, lib. vii., cap. iv., § 9, 10. Bloom- 
 riELD in loc. M. Stx AiiT, Comm. in Roin. xii. G-S, 
 M 
 
162 1 TIM. V. 17 EXAMINED. 
 
 explain one obscure text by others that are clear,, the 
 conclusion must be, that St. Paul means one class of 
 Elders, and not two, — the one class in aU places recog- 
 nised as exercising both functions, as the necessities of 
 the Church may require ; and out of this class he singles 
 out some who are wortliy of double remuneration. In 
 confirmation of this it is to be observed, that the 
 word 7rpoe(TTMT€<^, here rendered " those that rule,^' — 
 collated with Rom. xii. 8 ; 1 Thess. v. 12 ; 1 Tim. iii. 
 4, 5, 12, — has a more general signification than that 
 of simjDly ruling : it denotes the holding of oversight 
 in the Church, like that of a father in a household, 
 and comprises both the departments just referred 
 to. It is not denied that it might be grammatically 
 applied to only one ; but a fair interpreter would ask, 
 ^^If this term, in other places where it describes church- 
 officers, comprehends both functions, why should 
 it be taken arbitrarily to mean in a particular pas- 
 sage but one of those functions, and the act it involves 
 be predicated of another and distinct class of Elders ?" 
 According to the general style of the Apostles, would 
 not the full meaning of the first clause be, ^^ Those 
 that execute the duties of their twofold office well?^^^ 
 
 * So Dr. Smith argued in the Westminster Assembly, and quoted 
 the Alexandrine Clement, as speaking of al irpoaTacriai tuu 0776X0)1', 
 — "the cares of angels." — Lightfoot's Works, Svo. Joimiala, &c. 
 So Abraham Scultetus, a learned assessor at the Synod of Dort, apud 
 ViTRiNGAM : " Sunt qui vcl umim hunc locum sat roboris hahere 
 putant ad firm and um preshjterium laicorum. Prcestrinxit enim 
 oculos et judicium illonim distinctio Presbi/terorum, non obsctire 
 per D. Paulum hic indicata. Qni si Jiunc ipsum locum paulb dili- 
 gentius fuerint rtiminati, eundemque cum aliis Scripturce dictis 
 contulerint, deprehendent illicb, Pkesbyterorum laicorum ex hoc 
 dicto defensionem contrariam esse sir/nificalioni vocahnli Trpoeffrcires, 
 contrariam esse significationi nominis irpiaSvTepos, adversari perpe- 
 
1 TBI. V. 17 EX^VMINED. 103 
 
 2. The word rendered "honour" here mcans^ 
 accordincc to the almost unanimous consent of all inter- 
 preters, pecuniary acknowledgment or remuneration. 
 Indeed, the eighteenth verse fixes this meaning by 
 proceeding thus : " For the Scripture saitli, Thou 
 shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. 
 And, The labourer is worthy of his reward." Now 
 we have express authority in Scripture that those who 
 preach the Gospel are to live of the Gospel : (1 Cor. 
 ix. 14 :) but we have no precept and no example for 
 the support of any other order; and the fair and 
 reasonable conclusion is, that the Elders who were to 
 be counted worthy 'of this honour were Elders in whose 
 office teaching or preaching of the word was included. 
 
 3. x\nd therefore the distinction implied in the 
 text is not a distinction between different offices, 
 but between officers of the same description, dis- 
 tributing unequally their total amount of duties, or 
 fulfillinG: those duties with different dea;rees of devoted- 
 ness and fidelity. Those who fiU the joint preacliiug 
 and ruling office well, are to be rewarded with an 
 acknowledgment twice the amount of that which is 
 
 tuee dodriiuB Fauli, adversari menti omnium Patrum a qv.ibus qui- 
 dem hoc Pmill effatumfuit expositum" " There are some who think 
 that tliis one passage has sufficient strength for the contirination of lay 
 preshytcry. For the distinction of Presbyters, which is plainly set 
 forth here by St. Paul, has blinded their eyes and their judgment : 
 who, if they will a little more carefully consider the same passage, 
 and compare it with other portions of the sacred writings, will dis- 
 cover, that a defence of lay presbyters from this passage is con- 
 trary to the meaning of the word Trpoeo-Twres, is contrary to the 
 signification of the name irp^aSvTipos, is opposed to the constant 
 teaching of Paul, and is opposed to the opinion of all the Fathers 
 by whom this saying of Paul's has been expounded." — Le Vet. 
 Si/nar/., p. 491. 
 
164 1 TIM. V. 17 EXAMINED. 
 
 given to those who simply hold the office, and do not 
 distinguish themselves by any special toil or \\dsdom : 
 and particularly are those amongst them to be so 
 rewarded who, in addition, are most zealous to diffuse 
 the Gospel word by earnest preaching, which is the 
 evangelistic obhgation imposed upon all Pastors. 
 
 It must be carefully noted that, in the interpreta- 
 tion of Scripture, the greatest attention must ever be 
 paid to emphatic words; for very often the whole 
 burden and stress of a sentence is laid upon them. 
 In the words of Christ, " Seek ye first the kingdom 
 of God and His righteousness,^' the whole force of the 
 admonition lies in the word " first,''' implying that a 
 care for our personal salvation, and the maintenance 
 of Christ's cause in the world, must take precedence 
 of all other thoughts and cares, in order to our realis- 
 ing a true present good. And in the words, " Will 
 ye also go away?" the word "ye," emphatically 
 used, brings out what would otherwise be a tame 
 question into the form of an overwhelming appeal to 
 a band of startled and grateful disciples. So here the 
 Elders who "labour,""^ that is, employ and exhaust 
 their strength in extending the Gospel, are selected 
 as especially deserving a double reward. Here, 
 as elsewhere, we find a plui*aHty of Elders; (a 
 point which will have to be touched again;) and the 
 facts, as well as the whole analogy of history, point to 
 the conclusion that in every early Church, even in the 
 Apostles' days, several Elders, separated to the work 
 
 * " KoTTido}, laboro, molestos lahores tracto, qnihiis corpus defati- 
 yatur ac vires exhaiir'mntur ; a kSttos, labor gravis, molestia." — 
 ScHLEUSNER. So LiMBORCH, TheoL, lib. vii., cap. iv., § 10, cum 
 
 la'dtis aliis. 
 
1 TIM. V. 17 EXAMINED. 105 
 
 of the pastorate, laboured in one common council of 
 agreement and oversight in the community of believ- 
 ers ; and while some, by special endowments, or by 
 personal bias, Avere addicted more to disciplinary and 
 economical duties, keeping the community in order, 
 others of tliem, fired by love to Christ, and zeal for 
 the salvation of soids, preached the word in the sur- 
 rounding parts, won fresh triumphs for the Gospel, 
 and augmented the number in their churches by the 
 converts thus obtained."^ 
 
 * " Qtiin omninb crediderim, non raro factum ut in eundem, Presbi/' 
 terorum ordinem ex aliorum inopid cooptati sint homines ; severitate 
 morum, experientid, et pietate vita valde venerabiles, ac proinde 
 coetiii regendo summo quidem jure prcefecti, sed ad docendum minus 
 idonei ; atque adeb facile concipio, qnbd quidam Presbi/teri ecclesia 
 docuerint, alii rariiis docuerint, vel etiam docendo penitus abstinu- 
 erint, sive qubd ad docendum miniis fuerint idonei, sive qnbd in 
 eodem coetu alios kabuerint, se exercitatiores, et ad docendum, 
 dicendumque copiosiiis instructos, cum ipsi interea temporis aliam 
 aliquam partem muneris Preshi/teri diliyentius curarent. Non 
 abner/at itaque Paulus in hoc loco nllis Presbi/teris docendi jus ; 
 solummodb supponit, quosdam, NON DOCERE ; vellet tamen, ut om- 
 nes docerent : immb verb, incitat et exhortatur omnes ut doceant, 
 quoniam eos qui docent, maxime prcedicat dignos duplici honore. 
 Hie simplex, hie clarus et minime ambiyuus sensus est verborum 
 Paidi." — YiTRiNGA, p. 493. 
 
 " But yet I could altogether believe, it was frequently arranged that 
 into the same order of Presbyters, because of the lack of others, there 
 should be men chosen, venerable for gravity of manners, experience, 
 and purity of life ; and for that cause rightly invested with authority iu 
 directing the council ; but they were less fitted for teaching : and there- 
 fore I can easily conceive that certain Presbyters of the church taught, 
 while others taught but seldom, or abstained altogether from teaching ; 
 either because they were less a^^t, or because in the same council they 
 had others more exercised and more fully instructed in tlie work of 
 teaching and speaking, while they iu the mean time the more dili- 
 gently occupied themselves iu another department of the same office. 
 Paul docs not deny to any of the Presbyters in this place the right of 
 
160 l>n. \\A1M>I.A\V ON 1 TIM. V. 17. 
 
 § T\. Tho \\]\o\c (){' this is conliniuHl by tlio fact, 
 that tho Avord /.idXiara, " especially/' could never be 
 made to bear (lie sense A\liieli llie 11uh)it oi' rulini;' 
 Kldei's reiiuirc^s. |)r. \\ ardlaw and Dr. l)a\'idson 
 both have uri;vil this with great clearness and force. 
 Accordini;- to invariable nsaii'c, and the strict philosophy 
 of the Greek langnaii'e, the ronner slunvs, "il nuist be 
 understood as represent ini;- Ihost' who an* describiHl in 
 the latter jiartof the vin-se as coniprehend(Hl under the 
 more grniTal d(>scription in the former, — not as a dis- 
 tinct class of persons, but a select portion of the same 
 class, distinguished by a specilicd ])artieularity. Thus, 
 1 l^ni. iv. 10 : MVc trust in the living (lod, who is 
 the Saviom* of all men, specially of those that believe.' 
 * Those that believe ' are included among the ' all 
 men,' but distinguislied from the rest by their faith, 
 'i'it. i. 10 : ' There are many nnndy and vain talk- 
 ers, sjnrialfi/ they of the circumcision.' The ' vain 
 talkers' Avho Mere of the circunu'ision, av(MV thus 
 specially distinguished from a larger class of vain 
 talkers that called for determineil opposition. To 
 conceive of the two parts of the verse as referring to 
 distinct offices, is to assign to the adverb a sense Avhich 
 it never bears, if the former \\\x{ of the verse be 
 explaiui'd as referring to lay Elders, — to Elders that 
 ruK" but do not teach, — then those in the latter part 
 of the verse, mIio both ride and teach, are not com- 
 prehended in the previous description." 
 
 1 caching : ho only supposes tliorc ucre sonic who did not ieach : yet 
 he would rather that all taught ; nay, he verily j)roinpts and exhorts 
 all that they should tcacli, inasnnu'h as he deelares those who teach 
 worthy in the highest deiiree of douhle hontuir. This is the simple, 
 clear, and least anibiLTUous sense of TauFs words." 
 
1 TIM. V. 17 EXAMINED. 107 
 
 I)r. King of Glasgow, who seems, in his tliird 
 edition of " Tlie liuling Ehlership/^ "^ to acquiesce 
 in this view of the adverb, would, therefore, 
 expound the text thus : — That under the general 
 description of rulers, that is, mere rulers, the Apostle 
 specifies a few of those only as being concerned 
 in administering the' word and doctrine. But can 
 that estimable writer really believe that under a Gospel 
 dispensation, whose first mandate to Ministers was to 
 teach all nations, whose first and abiding difficulty 
 was to fill the void of ignorance in the thouglitless, 
 and remove error from the heathenised, whose most 
 potent instrumentality under the Holy Ghost was a 
 scriptural intelligence, (and in order that Pastors 
 might use this instrumentality unimpeded. Deacons 
 were to be chosen to take other and less sacred cares,) — 
 can he beheve that the genuine account of the Minis- 
 ters of Christ is, that they are rulers, — in other words, 
 that this presiding is the main work of Christianity, 
 and that gifted preachers are only a species under this 
 generality ? Surely never ; for the whole frame-w^ork 
 of Christianity would be altered by the supposition.t 
 
 Th(; illustration given by iJr. M^Kerrow of his view 
 (){ liakLo-ra, and quoted with approbation by the oppo- 
 nents of A\'esleyan Methodism, is to the following 
 efl'ect : — " Should any one giving an account of a 
 battle say, 'AU the soldiers fought well, eapecialli/ i\\ii 
 
 ♦ P. 21. London, 1851. 
 
 t So also Lawson in his Polilica Sacra et Civilis, on 1 Tim. v. 
 17. "From hence they infer that there are ruling Elders which 
 labour in the word and doetrine, and others which do not. This pre- 
 Bupposeth that naKicTa, turned ' especially,' is taken here partitively. 
 Yet that cannot be proved." — P. 243. 
 
168 1 TIM. V. 17 EXAMINED. 
 
 infantry/ would we not understand him as intimating 
 that there were soldiers engaged in the battle who were 
 not infantry ?" True; but this is no fair illustration 
 of the point in hand. Soldiers of whatever class, 
 infantry, cavalry, or artillery, are all alike as to 
 fulfilling their comprehensive duties, offensive, defen- 
 sive, and vigilant; whereas the first clause of the 
 text under review is assumed to refer but to one class 
 of acts, while the next is supposed to bring in acts 
 additional and perfectly diverse. Nothing can be more 
 bhnding, or ad capiandum. The illustration, in order 
 to be adapted to tlie position assumed on this point, 
 would rather have to run thus : — " Let the soldiers 
 who keep guard, (which is one function of a soldier,) 
 if they do their part well, be duly honoured, especially 
 those who fight : '' or, ^^ Let the soldiers who watch, 
 but do not fight, when they do their duty well, be 
 rewarded doubly, especially those of them who both 
 watch and fight V^ This is fairer, but it is absurd in 
 proportion to its fanness. 
 
 If the word irpoea-rcoTef; be taken in the full sense of 
 " those exercising pastoral care,^^ then the point in dis- 
 pute is given up ; for tlie pastoral care involves both 
 government and instruction. If it be asserted to mean 
 ruling only, then the sequel excepts a special particu- 
 lar from a previous predication which does not contain 
 it, and the strange direction might be put thus : — " Let 
 the ruling Elders who fulfil their duty well be counted 
 worthy of double honour, especially the teaching 
 Elders \" or, ^'Let the Elders who rule, but do not 
 teach, when they do their duty well, be duly honoured, 
 especially those of them who both teach and rule l" 
 Thus hopeless is the cause in question, as it is like- 
 
CALVIN THE AUTHOR OP RULING ELDERSHIP. 169 
 
 wise sought to be established from this passage, which 
 has always been regarded as the strongest of the tliree ; 
 and besides these three, I am not aware that any other 
 has been brought into the controversy. 
 
 § X. We may, then, say boldly that the doctrine, 
 in these three places, of Calvin, who speaks of seniors, 
 or grave and approved men appointed for the correc- 
 tion of manners and administration of discipline, was 
 a novelty and an invention; judging of that doctrine 
 not only from his own exposition of it, but from its 
 embodiment in the Genevan regimen, which was sub- 
 sequently copied by some of the Reformed Churches, 
 particularly the Presbyterian bodies of Scotland ; and 
 from its reiteration by evangelical Trench commen- 
 tators, Avith whom he was as great an authority as 
 was Augustine with the ancients. It is not denied, 
 that, in the apostolical and earliest churches, some 
 Elders were more particularly gifted for, and were 
 therefore more occupied in, ruling and its associated 
 cares ; and that such, in a very few passages of anti- 
 quity, are hinted at, — though it may be questioned 
 whether they are not censured in Scripture, — wliile 
 others are more particularly distinguished as Doctors 
 or Teachers, — those, for instance, Clement, Origen, 
 and the like, in the learned church of Alexandria : (and, 
 strange enough, most defenders of the ruling elder- 
 ship seem to regard the proof of tliis point as being 
 the proof of the whole question :) nor is it denied 
 that, on occasions of great interest or moment, 
 Bishops or Elders took counsel with wise or 
 good senior members of their churches, who w-ere 
 sometimes ^lagistrates or civil rulers, before they 
 acted. Such a practice, we believe, may be traced ; 
 
170 UNKNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 and we acknowledge^ in certain conditions of society, 
 its propriety and harmony with the entire spirit of the 
 New Testament. Bnt that a distinct class of Elders 
 was created solely to rnle and administer discipline, 
 and for that purpose set apart in common with 
 Pastors properly so called, and with them lLke\\ise 
 sustained by the church; — this we entirely deny, 
 as being a scheme having no evidence in its favour, 
 either from Scripture or antiquity. We say " anti- 
 quity,^^ inasmuch as here the argument has a real 
 historical value; for if Elders solely for discipline 
 were appointed in the churches under the eye of the 
 Apostles, and the appointment thus became a normal 
 institute, it is incredible that the first testimonies of 
 uninspired history should not contain the trace of it.* 
 At the same time, to investigate antiquity does 
 not belong to our present purpose : our appeal is to 
 the Word of God, seeking out its meaning, where 
 that may seem doubtful, by the plainest and most 
 usually received canons of interpretation. When 
 the ocean of antiquity so abounds with evil as well 
 as good, error as well as truth, the closer we keep to 
 oui* simple aim, the more satisfactory will our conclu- 
 sion be. Besides, when our opponents appeal to anti- 
 quity in support of lay eldership, and reject its evidence 
 in favour of episcopacy, such reasoning commands no 
 respect, and carries no conviction. It will hardly be 
 denied by the candid among them, that in the age in 
 which they think they find their distinctive office, 
 government by Bishops, as distinct from common 
 Presbyters, was universal ; and tliat, whether scriptu- 
 rally or not, the chief ruler exercised at that time what 
 
 * See Note (A), Appcudix. 
 
so JEWISH PRECEDENTS. 171 
 
 Jerome called soon after exors potestas, " an un- 
 shared power." Wiy, then, accept the testimony, if 
 such were to be found, in favour of one office, and 
 reject it when speaking plainly in behalf of the other ? 
 The evidence is completely invalidated and put out of 
 court. If ruling eldership were really there, the 
 episcopacy, ^\ith its alleged peculiar rights, might go 
 far to balance the arrangement, and make it otherwise 
 tlian an evil one : but nothing is so far from the 
 intention of modern theorists in this line, as to acknow- 
 ledge a privileged Bishop, counteracting, by his pecu- 
 liar authority, the imagined ultra-popular tendencies 
 of lay rulers. 
 
 § XI. Some have supposed that they have disco- 
 vered an analogy to the mixed Presbyterian regimen 
 in the order of the sjniagogue, where not only Priests 
 who were separated from the rest of the people, and 
 supported by tithes, bore rule, but also heads or 
 Elders of the people, who yet were engaged in secular 
 affairs. It must be replied, that if this alleged ana- 
 logy were valid and true, it must assuredly be one 
 which we are forbidden to adopt, by the very spirit of 
 the Christian dispensation. In this particular would 
 lie one of the distinctions between Judaism and Chris- 
 tianity. Tlie Prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah both 
 foretold that there should be a change in the cliarac- 
 ter of the pastorship in the times of the Gospel. 
 (Jer. iii. 15; Ezek. xxxiv. 10.) In Judaism there 
 was not only a theocratical connexion between church 
 and state, but such a connexion as enabled the rulers 
 of a synagogue to inflict pains and penalties, even to 
 the extent of severe scourging, as the Apostles of our 
 Lord were made to experience; to levy contributions, 
 
172 NO JEWISH PRECEDENTS. 
 
 and the like. The members of the council are styled 
 by Josephus, the Magistracy and the Judges.^ 
 
 The synagogue^ in some of its aspects, was a civil 
 tribunal which men were Hable to regard with fear ; 
 for civil and religious oftences were merged into each 
 other and equally treated ; and in our Lord^s time and 
 a while after, when acknowledged and sustained by the 
 imperial authorities, it was often both formidable and 
 oppressive, and evinced that Gentilism of administra- 
 tion against which our Lord warned his Apostles, and 
 the Apostles warned their fellow-Elders. In the 
 empire of Morocco even now the heads of synagogues 
 have authority to imprison. Many of the Eulers, then, 
 in those ancient times, with so many civil cares upon 
 them, Avould be almost given up to ruling, not having 
 time or disposition for teaching ; but in Christianity, 
 — Christ^s kingdom, which was not of this world, 
 — everything was to be of an opposite character. 
 Here men were to rule because they taught, and 
 taught effectually to salvation and sanctification. The 
 supposed analogy referred to, however, is, after all, 
 lame and imperfect : it proceeds on the notion that 
 Priests and Elders represented the distinct classes of 
 Clergy and laity : whereas the Priests, though heredi- 
 tarily appointed and supported by tithes, were not, 
 fi^9 such, of the synagogue Clei'gy at all. As such, 
 they did not minister or teach there : their functions 
 belonged to the temple or typical service, all of which 
 was fulfilled in Clirist. They ministered and taught 
 as Elders ; and the other non-sacerdotal members of 
 
 * " Antiquities," book iv., chap. 8. So Cyprian Ado. Judccos, 
 § 14. Fol., 1682. 
 
KO REALLY POPULAR ELEMENT. 173 
 
 the council were likewise ordinarily separated from 
 trading society, and sustained, as well as they, though 
 in a different way, by the contributions of the people : 
 they did not ordinarily engage in secular affairs. Any 
 Elder was hable to be called upon to preach or teach, 
 though at the head of each distinguished school and 
 synagogue there was an eminent Rabbi or ruling 
 Doctor ; but the devotional or religious teaching in 
 tlie synagogues evidently, as far as we can learn, 
 was conducted on the principle of voluntary and 
 mutual distribution of labour, much as in the early 
 Cliristian churches. Thus all distinctions wliich 
 really affect the argument on the present question, 
 are obliterated.^ 
 
 On the theory, too, that misrule on the part of 
 Pastors would be counteracted by a mingling Avith 
 them, in acts of primary administration, of non- 
 preacliing or non-clerical persons; such an arrange- 
 ment will really be found impracticable and beside 
 the point : for, on tliis scheme, men are as effectually 
 taken from the people, and made a separate class, 
 as if they were ordained to all the functions. They 
 are set to administer pastoral acts A\ithout having 
 through experience the pastoral heart ; and in cases 
 where a failing piety or a rising of schism breaks the 
 unity of the body, they, from their position, woidd as 
 likely prove to be anti-popular as anti-ministerial. A 
 check upon pastoral mal-administration must be pro- 
 vided for by means far more natui'al and effectual, as 
 we shall see. Sin can bhght and ruin any institution ; 
 but history shows that nothing has been so tre- 
 
 Sec note (B), Appendix. 
 
174 LAY OLIGAUCHY HAS PERSECUTED. 
 
 mendously evil in its consequences,, as sin acting upon 
 tlie blending together of a spiritual authority with a 
 powerful lay oligarchy. Here is the point of contact 
 where the best part of the world and the most declining- 
 part of the church join hands, and make ultimate 
 secularisation unavoidable. The very essence of per- 
 secuting power lies in this union. Either discipline 
 must be utterly lost from the worldliness of the standard 
 adopted, as is the case in the Lutheran Churches ; or 
 else a tyrannical constraint is exercised, which, grasp- 
 ing at such contrary objects as men^s civil and 
 spiritual obligations, must destroy itself by its difficul- 
 ties and its enormities. 
 
 It would be an easy, though ungrateful, task, to 
 illustrate this from the acts both of prelacy and pres- 
 bytery, when either was in power. Even our perse- 
 cuted forefathers, who fled from this country to New- 
 England in order to escape from the oppression of 
 the Star-Chamber and the High-Church authorities, — 
 having adopted Calvin^s " platform," which by its rul- 
 ing Elders blended civil magistracy with the spiritual 
 Teacher's function, — soon went into nearly all the 
 excesses which they themselves had appealed against 
 and suffered from. Numbers of poor half-crazy 
 Quakers, and people accused of witchcraft, were muti- 
 lated, whipped, and some put to death, through this 
 all-usurping power. Even on that construction of 
 the case which would be most favourable to the per- 
 secutors, namely, that all these w^ere children of the 
 devil, still it was in direct violation of our Lord's pre- 
 cept in His parable of the Wlieat and Tares. ^ There 
 
 * See at length Neal's " History of New-England," London, 1720. 
 
ONE ORDER — VARIETY OF GRADE. 175 
 
 is no arrangement on earth so favourable for the spi- 
 ritual liberties of a Christian people, as that which 
 gives them Ministers of their own recognising, tested 
 by a common standard, void of any the least magis- 
 terial power, and dependent upon themselves for 
 support. 
 
 § XII. Taking all the preceding considerations 
 togetlier, it has, I hope, been proved that the Minis- 
 ters of the New Testament are of one class and order ; 
 that is, so far as to exclude a prelatical authority or 
 transmitted apostleship on the one hand, and the 
 intervention of non-teaching rulers on the other. 
 
 In harmony with this conclusion, the founder 
 of ^lethodism ever acted in all his discipKnary 
 ai-rangements ; and the Conference in like manner, 
 since his day. It has never recognised two classes 
 of Elders. The Assistants and Helpers of Mr. 
 Wesley, who after his death became the Pastors of 
 the people, were almost always made responsible for 
 the teaching and discipline of the people ; not but 
 that tliey, too, in both functions, were assisted by 
 persons who were strictly of the people. AVhatever 
 guards were subsequently instituted against the arbi- 
 trary, unjust, or indiscreet use of this authority, the 
 principle of holding it in the appropriate hands was 
 never given up. So early as 1771, there were Leaders 
 in some of the Societies who, fixed in secular life as 
 they were, would fain have managed by votes of 
 their own order the most important disciplinary acts 
 which can be conceived of, and for the character of 
 which the Pastor is amenable to the Head of the 
 church. !Mr. Wesley met this claim, in his usual 
 prompt and laconic manner, in a paper which he 
 
176 WESLEYAN THEORY AND PEACTICE. 
 
 drew up for the occasion, and in the strongest terms 
 of decision assigned the responsible duties of the 
 Christian eldership to those who had been called of 
 God^ accepted by liimself, and welcomed bj the Socie- 
 ties^ as Ministers of the New Covenant."^ 
 
 And although^ since then, the powers of Leaders' 
 Meetings have been enlarged, especially in giving 
 them to act as a jury in the case of an accused mem- 
 ber, and to have a vote on any proposition to receive 
 a new Leader, or remove an existing one, no step has 
 been taken to confer on them the obligations of the 
 eldership. They were not placed under these at first, 
 nor have they been so placed since. Mr. Wesley's 
 document assigns them the task '^to advise, reprove, 
 comfort, or exliort" their members, — not, in the 
 highest or pastoral sense, to feed them; for this 
 last always involves the notion of a competent expo- 
 sition of the Holy Scriptures under the light and 
 guidance of the Spirit, with ordination and separation 
 to that work on the part of the teacher. 
 
 Tn those contentions, likewise, after the death of 
 Mr. Wesley, which led eventually to the secession of 
 Mr. Kilham and his party, and in those subsequent 
 disputes as well, in which the interfusion of laymen 
 into the pastoral body has been the chief thing 
 sought for, or at least in which a share for them 
 in the chief responsibility has been demanded; as 
 also when Local or lay Preachers, because of their 
 occasional teaching, have claimed a part in »the 
 same kind of rule ; the Conference has rested firmly 
 on this foundation, without any misgiving as to 
 
 * See note (C), Appendix. 
 
WESLEYAN THEOHY AND PRACTICE. 177 
 
 its validity. The Leader or Local Preacher it could 
 not by any possibility make into a New-Testament 
 Elder : the main conditions were wanting, and endless 
 confusion and anarchy woidd have followed any such 
 attempt. It could not found an order of pseudo- 
 Presbyters : it could not — I do not say merely, depart 
 from — oppose the order of Christ^s church in all ages. 
 It has secured the rights of these superior brethren, 
 just mentioned, as these Chapters will show ; but, in 
 doing this, it has not placed them in a false position, 
 or violated the spirit and disturbed the analogies 
 of the primitive and apostolical institutes. 
 
 The late Kev. Daniel Isaac, in some controversial 
 pamphlets published about the time of the Leeds 
 schism, was led by a mistaken view to describe the 
 Leaders in Methodism as answering to the Elders of 
 the New Testament : and modern opponents of our 
 order have somewhat too eagerly seized upon liim as 
 an authority; for they have failed to see that his 
 theory is more opposed to modern claims than our 
 own. For if the Leaders are to be regarded as repre- 
 senting New-Testament Elders, then of course the 
 Ministers must be regarded as New-Testament Evan- 
 gelists, who acted always on their own proper autho- 
 rity, and governed the Elders. 
 
 § XIII. I am quite willing to believe that although 
 the Presbyterian bodies of Scotland and America, and 
 some "Reformed" churches on the Continent, acknoAv- 
 ledge ruhng Elders as assessors with the Pastors in 
 matters of disciplinary adjudication; yet it is pro- 
 bably Httle more than matter of theory : for as, in most 
 of these communions, the office of Deacon has hardly, 
 until recently, existed, (Dr. King, and Dr. M^Kerrow, 
 
 N 
 
178 WESLEYAN THEOllY AND PEACTICE. 
 
 of tlie United Presbyterian Church in Scotland, 
 have both confessed this,) the Elders have natu- 
 rally fallen into the discharge of diaconal duties, 
 and have represented those usual assistants of the 
 clergy which under other names are found in other 
 churches. When Deacons, however, are introduced 
 in these communities, they have no vote in the pres- 
 bytery, showing that, when they are viewed as apart 
 from Elders, they have hardly an official existence 
 at all in matters where office involves the exercise of 
 judgment and influence. Wliether, however, the con- 
 stant implication for life of certain persons involved 
 in trade and commerce and all its cares and sinuosities, 
 with Preachers and Teachers of the Gospel, on the 
 theory that they are all Elders, does not tend to lower 
 the strict sjjiritual standard on which disciplinary 
 judgment should proceed, and to tie the real Minister 
 down to acknowledge a conventional or commercial, 
 rather than a scriptural, rule of Christian conver- 
 sation, and therefore to evade, rather than prac- 
 tise, a godly discipline, — this is a serious question 
 which, I am all but confident, history answers on the 
 discouraging side. Calvin had premonition of this at 
 Geneva, almost as soon as his platform was complete. 
 An historian of the Reformation speaks thus of him : 
 " Calvin, with the zeal of a Prophet, and the resigna- 
 tion of a martyr who submits himself to the severe 
 word of God, exacted of the clmrch under his care 
 absolute obedience. He struggled hard with the 
 party of the Libertines, and by the grace of God he 
 overcame.''^ * All Ministers, however, if fully endowed 
 
 * D'AuBiGNE, "Discourses and Essays," ] 846. Collins. 
 
"VTESLEYAN THEORY AND PRACTICE. 179 
 
 for such a work, cannot afford a life-long struggle 
 with Libertinism : discipline must have its root and 
 origin in a cheerfully acknowledged pastoral standing, 
 not one to be fought for. 
 
 § XIV. Ministers, then, viewed as one body, are 
 all ahke, as it respects order, and yet distinct 
 from other ecclesiastical persons. Not so equal 
 but that a hoary and wise veteran may, by common 
 consent, command junior, or less gifted, or less expe- 
 rienced soldiers of Christ for specific services, on which 
 Christ may not have specifically spoken; or that, 
 in Council or Conference, the deciding majority may 
 require the minority to submit themselves, and refrain 
 from schismatic strife. Xot so distinct or separate but 
 that they are one with the Lord^s people, even the 
 humblest, in all tlie anxieties, cares, necessities of 
 working out personal salvation, and infirmities of 
 human nature ever liable to temptation : not so 
 distinct as to repel the co-operation of others; for 
 that may be brought to bear in every department : 
 nor so as to be otherwise than open to all the 
 influence that may proceed from the wisdom, zeal, 
 and intelligence of others in aid of their own func- 
 tions. They are so far from being Priests, having 
 the monopoly of access to God, and control over the 
 spiritual relations to Christ of private Christians, that 
 they themselves can only realise daily pardon and peace, 
 and the comforts of a holy walk, by a believing and 
 continually repeated application through faith to the 
 great High Priest who is passed into the heavens. 
 
 But they are distinct or separate, as being taken 
 from buying, selling, and getting gain, in order that 
 they may devote themselves to the work of serving 
 
 N 2 
 
180 QUALIF [CATIONS. 
 
 the Chief Shepherd^ and sustaining a responsibility 
 which grows out of their relations to Him; and 
 they are equal to each other^ as being mainly and 
 mutually charged mth the same duties, and as being 
 directly amenable to His authority. One sentence, 
 before quoted, expresses the whole matter : " One 
 is your Master, Christ,'^ — to the exclusion of Pope 
 or Prelate, — '' and all ye are brethren -," — bretliren, 
 it may be, of higher and lower degree. Bishops 
 and Elders, seniors and juniors, but still brethren, 
 breathing aKke the common spirit of adoption, 
 having charge in one household, mutually concerned 
 to ensui'e its peace, and bound in the confidence 
 of one common policy to promote the glory of 
 its Head. 
 
 With regard to qualifications, these, as laid down 
 in the inspii-ed volume, indicate the infinite wisdom 
 which devised the administrative economy of Cliris- 
 tianity. The Elder is always assumed to be "in 
 Clirist,''^ and a new creature, tlirougli personal conver- 
 sion and regeneration : but, besides this, he " must be 
 Uameless," (1 Tim. iii. 2-7,) that the gibes of the 
 worldly may not cast odium on his name ; " the hus- 
 band of 07ie wife," that he may have a household, 
 and, by guiding it aright and fostering the relative 
 affections, may be discipKned both in tenderness 
 and firmness for his higher charge ; " vigilant," 
 that he may not only resist evil when it appears 
 openly, but search it out and remove it ; " sober" 
 that he may be a slave to no physical appetency, nor 
 any mental fanaticism; "of good behaviour" or 
 modest, that no repelling rebuke of passion or pride, 
 given in return for discourtesy, may diminish his 
 
QUALIFICATIONS. 181 
 
 spiritual influence; "given to hospitality" that the 
 weary wanderer may be conciliated towards Him who 
 helps the stranger in distress, and is Himself our 
 dwelling-place in all generations; " cq)t to teach," 
 that he may be a fountain of light and knowledge to 
 the whole church ; " not given to wine" in order that, 
 like Elijah and John the Baptist in the wilderness, he 
 may draw his refreshment from Divine consolations ; 
 " no striJcer" that he may show the superiority of the 
 " spirit of power " over carnal violence ; " not greedy 
 of filthy lucre" that his appreciation of the ^^ gold 
 tried in the fire^' may the more readily appear; 
 "patient" that he may be an image of the long- 
 suffering of God ; " 7iot a brawler" but that his 
 grace of meekness may enable him and his fellow- 
 labourers eventually to inherit or possess the earth ; 
 "not covetous" but showing his contentment with 
 his all-sufficient God; "not a novice, lest being 
 lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of 
 the devil : moreover he must have a good report of them 
 which are loithout, lest he fall into repjroach and the 
 snare of the devil ; " for when men within the sphere 
 of Christianity suffer reproach, and this reproach is 
 not endured for the name of Christ, they are caught 
 in the meshes of an entanglement which, unless they 
 can burst it at a bound, may imprison them for ever. 
 The idea of such a brotherhood suggests the exist- 
 ence amongst them of a secret, peculiar to their own 
 consciousness and fellowship, — a secret which the 
 noblest and most intelligent of the flock cannot prac- 
 tically know, however all may understand it as a mere 
 sentiment; not a disciplina arcani, but an arcanum 
 disciplina' ; a common and to themselves peculiar 
 
182 APPENDIX. 
 
 sense of surrounding e\dl and peril, of impending 
 danger to the truth ; a perception of the harmonies 
 uniting fidelity, obedience, and love ; a dehcate appre- 
 ciation of the value of Christian authority, that is, 
 authority derived from likeness to Christ ; a dread of 
 the malice of the great adversary ; a vital perception 
 of the more delicate motions of God^s Spirit ; and a 
 keen sense of wrong being inflicted, when a passing 
 expediency is made to overbear a tested law, or when 
 an accidental error in administration is used as a plea 
 for the abrogation of the wise and good statute on 
 which it rests, or when the discharge on their part of 
 unpleasant and unpopular duties is put to the account 
 of selfish and carnal motives. In this respect all may 
 say, as St. Paul said, " He that judgeth me is the 
 Lord.^' (1 Cor. iv. 4.) 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note (A), page 170. 
 
 In attempting to support the doctrine of an apostolical coustitution 
 of ruling Eldership in the church of Christ, by citing over again 
 from the American Professor Miller several passages of ecclesiastical 
 history, the varied opponents of our order have evidently felt the 
 M^eakness of their cause, by their effort to give a breadth to the testi- 
 mony, whatever it may be w^orth, which it does not possess in reality. 
 Some of the quotations, we have seen, go to prove that there was a 
 plurality of Elders in the early churches, which is not denied ; others, 
 that these associated Elders ruled, — which is likewise beside the 
 point, for this is not denied either; and as to those which are 
 adduced to prove that a certain class of Elders (not being teachers) 
 were associated with preaching and teaching Elders, in ecclesiastical 
 acts and pastoral discipline, — for this is the point in question, a point 
 not to be buried in vague generalities, — it will be seen by the "candid 
 student that the proof utterly fails. I will select the strongest 
 instances. 
 
APPENDIX. 183 
 
 Cyprian is quoted, in his twenty-ninth Epistle, to this cfTect : "You 
 are to take notice that 1 have ordained Saturus a Reader, and the con- 
 fessor Optatus a Sub-deacon, whom we had all before agreed to place 
 in the rank and degree next to that of the Clergy. Upon Eastcr-day 
 we made one or two trials of Satm'us in reading, when we were 
 approving our Readers before the teaching Presbyters, and then 
 appointed Optatus, fi-om among the Readers, to be a Teacher of the 
 hearers." Stress is here laid, of com-se, upon the expression " teach- 
 ing Presbyters," as leaving it to be inferred, — for inference is all we 
 have offered us, — that there were Presbyters in the associated council 
 who were not ordained to teach, but rather to exercise discipline. 
 The inference, however, is much more clear and direct, that, according 
 to the spirit of those times, and after the example of the Alexandrian 
 church, several Presbyters were selected, who, in addition to their 
 public sacred duties of prayer, exhortation, and the like, convened 
 together imder episcopal superintendence, in halls or houses and 
 separate schools, the pupils who were trained in the more 
 advanced departments of Christian study, in connexion with such 
 branches of science as then could harmonise with it. Thus Origen 
 conjoined with himself Heraclas the Presbyter (afterwards Bishop) 
 at Alexandria, as a Doctor or Christian Teacher : and as to the 
 hearers or catechumens, their Teacher was selected from the higher 
 or lower Clergy according to the amount of culture or influence 
 required. The great Clement of Alexandria. did not deem this office 
 beneath him ; while in Carthage the Bishop selects one of the Readers 
 to be a Doctor audientium. With this view, too, Dionysius, the 
 Bishop of Alexandi'ia, opposing Nepos, a Bishop in Egypt, as quoted 
 by Eusebius, evidently blends the character of Elder and Teacher into 
 one, when he says, " When I was at Arsinoe, where, as you know 
 long since, this doctrine " [that of Christ's earthly reign] " was 
 afloat, so that schisms and apostasies of whole chm-ches followed, 
 after I had called the Presbyters and Teachers of the brethren in the 
 villages, when those brethren had come who wished to be present, I 
 exhorted them to examine the doctrine publicly." (See Euseb., 
 lib. vi., cap. 15, 20; Vitringa, De Vet. Spi., lib. ii., cap. 3, 7, 
 24.) 
 
 As to public teaching, or preaching, in the North African Church, 
 none taught in this sense but the Bishop, or those Presbyters who 
 were delegated by him. Ordinary prcsbyterial teaching in a minor 
 and more retired manner, was inseparable fi-om pastoral care. It is, 
 therefore, another possible inference, that the teaching Presbyters, 
 mentioned above by Cyprian, were those who at that time were 
 
184 APPENDIX. 
 
 selected for this duty ; not at all to the prejudice of other Elders, 
 who might be equally eligible, though otherwise engaged, or, being 
 more fitted for liturgical and economical duties, were chiefly engrossed 
 therein, and left to teach as opportunity might serve. So Vitringa 
 argues, connecting his own wdth the opinion of the learned Le Moyne, 
 his tutor, shomug that Presbyters, though they had an equal right 
 and calling, did not all preach, but occupied themselves in adminis- 
 tering sacraments, inquiring into scandals, consoling the sick, 
 strengthening the weak, entering into the cares and advancing the 
 interests of the chm*ch, and the like ; while Bishops and cJupf Pres- 
 bffters attended to the work of public instruction. (P. 497.) So 
 Baxter likewise, on 1 Tim. v. 17, to the same effect. 
 
 The idea, however, that persons not of the Clergy, not ordained to 
 sacred fimctions, should be associated with the Clergy in guiding and 
 governing the flock of Christ, is one wliich hardly in any age would 
 have found greater opposition than in the age of Cyprian. In his 
 stormy times, the rights and claims of all orders of persons in the 
 church were brought into controversy, and sifted with the keenest 
 scrutiny, on such occasions especially as those of baptisms, ordina- 
 tions, admissions to membership, and excommunications. The rights 
 of Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons, — that is to say, of the Clergy, — 
 and then those of Sub-deacons, Readers, Confessors, and the hke, not 
 of the Clergy, — were earnestly discussed; but where are ruling 
 Elders ever mentioned? Bishop Sage, who was well versed in the 
 history of this period, might well say " that there was as profound a 
 silence of them in Cyprian's works and time, as there is of the Solemn 
 League and Covenant, or the Sanquhar Declaration ;" (" Princii^les of 
 the Cyprianic Age," London, 1695;) and whoever looks over the super- 
 scriptions of Cy])rian's letters will find perpetually this addi-ess : 
 " Cijp-ianus Presb>/teris et Diaconis •" and sometimes " plebi uni- 
 versce ;" but never " Senioribus." StiU more to the purpose do we 
 find him joining other Presbyters with himself in addressing his 
 epistles, as in the fom'th : " Ci/jmanus, Ccecilius Victor, Sedatus, Ter- 
 tulhis, cum Presbi/teris qui p-cesentes aderant, Pomponio fratri, 
 sahdeni :" but not a word about these Elders. If any class at Car- 
 thage were ever found answering to this last term, it would be after 
 his day, which was the middle of the third century. 
 
 Origen's work, Contra Celsum, (lib. iii.,) is quoted as saying, 
 " There are some rulers appointed whose duty it is to inquire con- 
 cerning the manners and conversation of those who are admitted, 
 that they may debar from the congregation such as commit filthiness." 
 This is adduced as a plain instance on the point ; but it no more 
 
APPENDIX. 185 
 
 proves tliat the rulers in question were lay Elders than that they were 
 Bishops. That they were actually the latter, or ordained Prcshytcrs, 
 specially set, according to a wise distribution of labour, to attend to 
 this work, is, however, much more in harmony, as we have seen above, 
 with the spirit of the North- African chui'ches ; and, indeed, it accords 
 weU with the testimony borne by the earnest and energetic Tertullian, 
 himself a Carthaginian, some time before, where he says, in his 
 " Apology," cap. 39, p. 51 : " President probati quique Seniores, 
 honorem istum non pretio, sed testimonio adepti i" "The most 
 approved Seniors preside in acts of censm'ing offenders and exer- 
 cising discipline, not simply on the ground of their common sepa- 
 ration with all Elders, and their being sustained by the church, 
 but by reason of their having obtained this position tlu'ough testimony 
 as to their special fitness." Addi'essing the RomarL magistracy, this 
 writcFwould rather use the more general Latin term, Seniores, than 
 the church word derived fi'om the Greek, Presbi/teri. 
 
 Ambrose, on 1 Tim. v. 1, is next quoted ; and not only this Father, 
 but likewise several moderns who quote him; just as though, severally, 
 they were separate and independent testimonies. " For, indeed, among 
 all nations old age is honourable. Hence it is that the synagogue, and 
 afterwards the church, had Elders, without whose counsel nothing 
 was done in the church : which, by what negligence it grew into 
 disuse, 1 know not ; unless, perhaps, by the sloth, or rather by the 
 pride, of the Teachers, while they alone wished to appear something." 
 
 These are, however, the words of Hilary the Deacon, called the 
 Pseudo-Ambrose, or Ambrosiaster, whose work, according to Cave, 
 was not written until the year 384 : and the full force of the sentence, 
 as it is supposed to favom the point in hand, is made to turn upon 
 the word " Teachers," as implying a supposed contrast between them 
 and some other kind of Elders who did not teach. Now if we take 
 this term as signifying the Bishops, who in the Western churches 
 likewise were regarded as responsible for public instruction, and were 
 besides the chief medium, in propria persona, of its conveyance ; and 
 understand the writer to aflirm that these chief Rulers and Teachers 
 of the church had neglected by degrees to consult their council of Pres- 
 byters in their ecclesiastical acts ; then the whole is in harmony with 
 the accounts which are given us by chm-ch writers of the proceedings 
 of Bishops in the fom'th century, who were wont to act, even on grave 
 emergencies, without the advice of their Presbyters. Against this 
 principle of acting on sole episcopal responsibility, Cyprian, a cen- 
 tury before, had made a stand by his personal example ; but the 
 particularity with wliich he asserts this in his letters shows that even 
 
186 APPENDIX. 
 
 then this was to be spokeu of as an excellency, rather than as a thing 
 nnifonnly admitted. 
 
 Besides, it is clear that the Elders in question are not represented 
 br Hilary as the responsible parties in the church, but the parties 
 " qitoritm sine consilio nihil ac/ebatiir," — almost the very words of 
 Cyprian, on another occasion, — " ^^"ithout tchose counsel nothing was 
 done : " for, in consistency with his ai'gument and allusion, he must 
 be imderstood as speaking of the whole, and not a part, of the pres- 
 bytery. The s}Tiagogue, of which he speaks, had a council of Elders, 
 whom the Euler or Eulers always consulted without discriminating 
 between them, as though they were of different sorts : and so it was, 
 our author affirms, in the church. This is only a fair description, 
 indeed, of the state of things at Jerusalem in the time of the Apos- 
 tles. And here again the anjumentum e silentio is not ^vithout its 
 force and value ; for if these sentiments are attributed to Ambrose, 
 and are supposed to favour the lay-Elder theory, when do we find them 
 practically acted upon in the life of that enterprising and eminent 
 Bishop ? Does Theodoret, his principal witness and memorialist, 
 breathe a syllable respecting lay or riding Elders ? "When Ambrose 
 inflicted upon the Emperor Theodosius, the magnificent and popidar 
 monarch, the penalty of minor excommunication for the slaughter 
 of the Thessalonians, and A\-ithstood for the greatest part of a year 
 the sohcitations of those influential men who would fain have had it 
 taken off; in the excitement and testing of this anxious time, was 
 there nothing which would have revealed the otfice of ruling Elder, 
 had it ever existed ? 
 
 Some have noted the allusion of Estius to this place, as favourable 
 to the ultra-presbyterial platform : " Qtiidam tunc erant qui bene 
 prteerant, et dunlici honore diyni erant, nee tamen laborahant 
 in verbo et doctrinal (hi loc. 1 Tim. v. 17, api/d Pol. Si/nop. 
 Critic.) And, indeed, that Romish writer and critic would not be 
 imwilling to avail himself of any clause in Scripture which woidd 
 seem to leave an opening for the sanction of non-teaching Abbots 
 and other ecclesiastical rulers in the Papal system, who have no 
 concern in editSing the people by spiritual labours ; but, that he 
 acknowledges here a number of persons, not of the dents, as being 
 co-assessors ^ith the pastorate, is not at all manifest. Dr. Smith, 
 in the debates of the ^Vestminster Assembly, indeed, showed that his 
 aim was rather to justitS- the position of merely ruling Pontiff's and 
 Cardinals. (Lightfoot's AVorks, vol. xiii., p. 63. Svo. Loudon, 
 1824.) Independently, however, of any gloss by Estius or any other 
 commeutator, the meaning of this church-writer is best explained by 
 
APPENDIX. 187 
 
 the historj' and spirit of the Theodosian age, and hy keeping up the 
 (•onsistency of his allusion ; for had he meant what our Presbjlerian 
 friends and otliers mean by quoting him, his words must needs have 
 been not to this cfteet, that the Elders as a whole were slighted, (his 
 aetual statement,) but that a certain portion or class of them dciclined 
 to consult the other class. (See also Dr. Field, Dean of Glom^ester, 
 " Of the Church," vol. iii., chap. 26, p. 203. 1850.) 
 
 Augustine is also quoted in such places as these : — Contra Cres- 
 roninm Grammaticum, lib. iii., cap. 56 : " Peregrinus, Presbi/ter, 
 et ^Y.^iov.T.'^ Ecclesite Musticance regionis." Epist.\2tl : " Dilec- 
 tisshnls fratrlbus, Clero, Senioribus, et universce plebi Ecclesice 
 mpponensis." In the Benedictine edition, however, of Augustine's 
 \\'orks, the letter quoted by Professor Miller as 137, stands as 78 ; 
 and the superscription runs thus : " Dilectlssimis fratrlbus, Clero, 
 SENioRiiiUS, et universce plebi, Augustinus in Bofnifw salutemT 
 Others also, beside the persons already mentioned, have quoted from 
 Augustine, Contra Cresconium Bonatistam, lib. iii., cap. 29 : " Sil- 
 vanus a Cirtd traditor est, et fur rerum pauperum, quod omnes vos 
 Episcofd, et Presbgteri, et Diaconi, et Seniores scitis ; et de quad- 
 ring entis foil ibus Lucill(B clarissima femince ; pro quo vobis conju- 
 rdstis, ut fieret Majorinus Ejjiscopus, et inde factum est schisma." 
 " Silvanus from Cirta is a traditor, and robber of the things of the 
 poor, which all ye Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons, and Seniors know ; 
 and also respecting the four hundred /!y//e'5 [or purses of silver] of 
 the illustrious lady Lucilla; wherefore ye have conspired together 
 that Majorinus should be made Bishop, and hence has arisen this 
 schism." 
 
 Wc do not dwell, in this last instance, upon the disgrace to Chris- 
 tianity involved in the incipient simony in which all these persons in 
 Carthage seem to have been more or less involved ; but, surveying all 
 the instances, it must be conceded that Elders of some kind are here re- 
 cognised. It is obvious, however, first, that they are not of the Clergy, 
 — the pastoral ministry ; they are not Presbyters : secondly, tliat they 
 are lower in grade than the Deacons, being always mentioned after 
 them ; and the Deacons in those days had little or nothing to do with 
 ecclesiastical discipline. The learned Bingham gives the true solution 
 of the matter ; and we here give his words at full length : " As to 
 the Seniores ecclesice, they were a sort of Elders who were not of the 
 Clergy, yet had some concern in the care of the church. The name often 
 occurs in C)ptatus and St. Austin, from whom we may easily learn 
 the nature of their oftice. Optatus says that when Mensurius, Bishop 
 of Carthage, was obliged to leave his church in the Diocletian perse- 
 
188 APPENDIX. 
 
 cution, lie removed the ornaments and utensils of the clim-ch to such 
 of the Elders as he could trust, — 'Jidelibus Seniorihus cnmmendavit; 
 upon which Albaspiuaeus [Archbishop of Orleans] notes, that, beside the 
 Clergy, there were then some lay Elders, who were intrusted to take 
 care of the goods of the church. At the end of Optatus there is a 
 tract called ' The Pm'gation of Felix and Cfecilian,' wherein there are 
 several epistles that make mention of the same name, as that of Eortis 
 and Purpurius, and another nameless author. So St. Austin inscribes 
 one of his Epistles to his own chm-ch of Hippo in this manner : ' To 
 the Clergy, the Elders, and all the people ;' and in several other places 
 has occasion to mention these Seniors in other churches. From whence 
 some have concluded that these were ruling lay Elders, according to 
 the new mpdel and modern acceptation. Whereas, as the ingenious 
 author of the ' Himible Remonstrance' (H. L'Estrange, 'Defence 
 of the Remonstrance') rightly observes in his reply, those Seiiiores 
 of the primitive church were quite another thing. Some of them 
 were the Optimates, or chief Magistrates, of the place, such as we 
 still call 'Aldermen,' [eldermen,] from the ancient appellation of 
 Seniores. These are those whom the Carbarsussitan Council of Dona- 
 tists in St. Austin called 'Seniores nohilissimi ; and one of the Councils 
 of Carthage more expressly, (Con. Carthag. an. 403, in Con. Afric, 
 cap. 58, et in Cod. Can. Eccl. Afr., cap. 91,) ' Maxjistratus vel 
 Seniores locorum,' ' the Magistrates or Elders of every city,' whom 
 the Bishops were to take with them to give the Donatists a meeting. 
 In this sense Dr. Hammond observes, from Sii- Henry Spelman and 
 some of our Saxon writings, that anciently our Saxon Kings had the 
 same title of Elders, Aldermanni, Treshyteri, and Seniores ; as, in the 
 Saxon translation of the Bible, the word ' Princes ' is conmionly ren- 
 dered 'Aldermen.' And of this sort were some of those Seniores 
 ecch'sicE that have been mentioned, whose advice and assistance also, 
 no doubt, the Bishops took in many weighty affairs of the church. 
 The other sort, which were more properly called Seniores ecclesias- 
 tici, were such as were sometimes trusted with the utensils, treasiures, 
 and outward affairs of the church, and may be compared to Church- 
 wardens, Vestrymen, Stewards, who have some care in the affairs of 
 the church, but are not concerned as ruling Elders in the government 
 or disciphne thereof. Now lay Elders are above the Deacons ; but the 
 Seniores ecdesice were below them ; which is a further evidence that 
 they were not lay Elders in the modern acceptation." (Works, book 
 ii., chap. 19.) 
 
 To these likewise Ncander refers. (" General Church History," 
 vol. iii., p. 251, cd. Ediri.) The dictum of the Council to which 
 
APPENDIX. 189 
 
 Bingham alliules is mentioned by Augustine in Enarr. Psal. xx.rvi. 
 Sermo ii., in connexion with a censure on one Primianus, who is said 
 to have acted contrary to " /t'ffem decretaque omnium sacerdoltim" 
 " the law and decrees of the whole Priesthood or Clergy." The entire 
 scope of the communication must be taken in order to understand it. 
 So clearly, in this instance and in a thousand others at this time, do 
 ecclesiastical writers refer to the difference, whether it were a right 
 or wrong one, between the pastoral ministry and other orders of people 
 in the church, always making the standard of discipline to lie in the 
 synodal decisions of the former. 
 
 Besides, it must be remembered that, from the time of Constantine, 
 the relations of the civil magistracy and the rulers of the church 
 were becoming more implicated with each other. No Magistrate 
 could afford then to slight the infhiencc of the Bishop. Sjiiesius 
 of Ptolemais had himself excommunicated Andronicus the Governor 
 there. And the Bishops themselves, placed in a peculiar position by 
 the imperial laws, coidd not, in the unsettled state of society which 
 was induced by the incipient breaking up of the Roman empire, 
 govern their communities ^^^th anything like decision or effect, unless 
 they carried with them the most influential of the laity, especially 
 those in civil otfices. Before Augustine's death, the Vandals had 
 begun to desolate the fertile provinces of North Afi-ica skirting on the 
 Mediterranean ; and during this time the Donatists, who were labom*- 
 iug under civil disabilities because of their peculiarities as a sect, were 
 but ill-att'ected towards the imperial cause ; so that, in every matter 
 which affected the church, or the city in general, it was of the utmost 
 consequence that the Clergy and the influential laity should act in 
 harmony ; and thus the historical notices which we have above. (See 
 Gibbon's Decline and Fall, &c., vol. iii,, chap. 20 and 33, pp. 179, 
 211, ed. Milman, 1846 ; Neander's " General History of the 
 Chui-ch," vol. iii., p. 251, Edinb., 1848.) 
 
 Some writers, in reference to Bingham's comment on the passages 
 above, have said that, so long as it be granted the Seniores in question 
 held some office in the chm'ch apart from public preaching or teach- 
 ing, they contend for nothing more. If so, the controversy is at an 
 end ; for our opponents all the way through are understood to contend 
 for a class of oflicers who, although they are engaged in the cares of 
 secular life, and do not preach or teach, yet claim a share in primary 
 administration of discipline and rule. Does it follow that, because a 
 man is a Churchwarden, he has therefore a right to assessorship with 
 the Dean and Rectors ? Are men so to be deluded by the sound of the 
 word Seniores, as to take them to be aU one with pastord Presbyters, 
 
190 APPENDIX. 
 
 except in the matter of preaching ? The concession just named gives up 
 the whole point. Wesleyan Methodism has thousands of Elders similar 
 in the main to those which the North Aft-ican chm-ches recognised, 
 and considts them too. Any President of Conference might address 
 a letter to the Ministers, Stewards, Local Preachers, Leaders, and 
 people, without affording the least room to infer that the second or 
 third mentioned were primary assessors with him or with the pasto- 
 rate in ruling the chm-ch. If Augustine had written his superscrip- 
 tion thus: "Augustine, with the Clergy and Seniors, to the chm-ch at 
 Hippo," — it would have been more to the point ; but no such address 
 can be found, and his Seniors seem to be pretty similar to those of 
 Baxter, at Kidderminster, mentioned in his " Treatise on Episcopacy," 
 where he says, " I had fom- ancient godly men that performed the 
 ofiice of Deacons. I had above twenty Seniors of the laity, who, 
 without pretence of any office, met with us, to be witnesses that we 
 did the chm-ch and sinners no wrong, and to awe the offenders by their 
 presence." — P. 185. 
 
 In the Westminster Assembly several of the Presbyterian divines 
 urged, that in the Jewdsh sjmagogue there were lay Elders, as well as 
 Priests, who had a share in its government. But Dr. Lightfoot showed 
 that these were their highest civil Magistrates ; that the Priests had, 
 in the matters of the temple, a special responsibility in which none 
 could share ; and that when the lay Judges had jurisdiction, it was in 
 those causes where the offence was made a civil crime. But, apart 
 fi-om this, and supposing the matter were as just stated, even the 
 Presbyterians felt that to argue that, because there were such officers in 
 the synagogue, there should be similar in the Christian church, was a 
 foundation much too frail on which to bmld a permanent institution. 
 (Lightfoot's Works, vol. xiii., p. 63.) When church and state are 
 united, then, of course, the Queen's supremacy and the authority of 
 Parliament come in ; and how far these interfere with, or are distinct 
 from, spiritual rule, we do not here profess to say ; but in any view 
 they are the embodiment of an authority aiming at several objects, 
 rehgious and civil, — an authority altogether different from that which 
 is claimed for a ruling Elder, whose object is supposed to be only one. 
 
 As to the chm-ches of the Alpine valleys and of Bohemia, which 
 have been sometimes referred to as recognising ruling Elders, no 
 authentic date of history can be fixed on, as a period in which this 
 regimen was known, prior to the middle of the fourteenth century, — 
 the time when there was a general heaving in the more enlightened 
 parts of Europe against the Papal yoke. In the primitive habits of 
 these people, and where their secular and domestic, as weU as religious. 
 
APPENDIX. 191 
 
 coucems ha<l to be guided and directed, — no civil nde being estab- 
 lished, except that which ])ersecuted, — this order we may well con- 
 ceive to have been adopted in part, about this time, from necessity. 
 That the continued observance of this order tends to serve the inter- 
 ests of Christianity, we more than doubt ; for, from recent reports as 
 to the state of discipline in the Waldcnsian churches, it is to be 
 feared that the ruling-Elder standard of a correct Christian life is 
 lamentably below the New-Testament standard. As to its alleged 
 antiquity, there is on this point no satisfactory proof whatever. In 
 the documcat of " The Ancient Discipline of the Evangelical Churches 
 of Piedmont, extracted from divers Authors and Manuscripts several 
 hundred Years before Calvin and Luther," there is reference to the 
 subject in these words : " Amongst other privileges which God hath 
 given to His servants, [the Pastors,] He hath given them this, — to 
 choose their leaders, and those who are to govern the people, and 
 constitute Elders in their charge, according to the diversity of the 
 work in the unity of Christ, which is clear by that saying of the 
 Apostle in the Epistle to Titus, chap, i.," &c. This general language 
 asserts, then, that the Ministers of this community appointed other 
 Ministers and office-bearers suited to their peculiar position; but 
 where are lay Elders put as their co-officials ? (" History of the Evan- 
 gelical Churches of Piedmont. By Samuel Morland, Esq." 1058.) 
 Theii' ancient government, from the time of the Paulicians, fi-om 
 whom they are supposed to be descended, was episcopal; and 
 Reinerus, {De Haret.^ cap. vi., in Bib. Pair., vol. xiii., p. 304,) who 
 lived several years among them, gives the following orders : " II I e 
 qui est in primo et maximo ordine vocatur Episcoims : ille qui in 
 secundo vocatur filius major : qui in tertio, filius minor : qui in 
 quarto et ultimo vocatur Diaconusy " He who is in the first and 
 greatest order is called Bishop : he who is in the second is called an 
 elder son : he who is in the third is called a younger son : he who is 
 in the fom-th and last is called Deacon." So that, according to this 
 witness, the only distinction between Presbyters had been that of 
 senior and junior ; and this chief Barbe or Pastor and his fellow- 
 Pastors met together every year to determine their affairs in a 
 General Council. (See Powell " On Apostolical Succession," pp. 90- 
 92. London, 1838. Faber's " Waldenses and Albigenscs.") 
 
 We next adduce the testimony of Vitringa, who, after he has admitted 
 that it was an early practice in some places for the Clergy to consult 
 on grave occasions wise and eminent members of their communion, and 
 that, in certain early churches, there were persons who, " quodam- 
 modo" "after a certain fashion," resembled modem lay Elders, — 
 
192 APPENDIX. 
 
 asserts that the hinge upon which the whole matter turns is the fact, 
 that of Elders of this sort no mention whatever is made in Holy 
 Scripture. He sums up the argument from antiquity thus: "1. 
 Those Elders, specially so called, did not among the ancients make a 
 part of the Clergy, — that is, of an ecclesiastical order, — but a part of 
 the people. They were not with the Clergy, — that is, with Bishops, 
 Presbyters, and Deacons, in presb}i;eries, in choirs, or in councils, — but 
 with the people : they adhered to them, and constituted a part of them, 
 though an eminent and specially honom-ed part. 2. These Elders, 
 for that cause, are placed after the Deacons, as is also certain from 
 the testimonies which we have noted. 3. Wherefore the ancients also 
 took care that they were not called Presbyters, lest by ignorance any 
 one should confound them wdth the Elders of the chm-ch, of which 
 mention is made in Scriptm-e, but Seniores and yepovres. 4. The 
 care of the church was not devolved on them ; forasmuch as not 
 more upon them than upon all other members of the chm-ch rested 
 the obligation of admonishing, exhorting, and instructing, in a 
 private if not public manner, the people : iti excommunicatmg trans- 
 gressors, and admitting i^enitents, they had no part. I will say 
 in a word, they w^ere not a portion of the ecclesiastical senate to 
 which the ministry and the care of the chm'ch was iutrusted. (Vide 
 Hieron.: ' Et nos hahemus in ecdesid senatum nostrmn, coetum 
 Preshyterorum' — Com. in Is., lib. ii., cap. 3.) They were regarded 
 as a part of the people, separate and distinct from the Clergy and 
 its senate, and mulertaking no ministerial or clerical offices. Never- 
 theless, I affirm this was done, — a thing which reason teaches to be 
 equitable and right, — that Bishops and Presbjiers did not neglect to 
 make use of the counsels, aids, and testimonies of these Seniors or 
 eminent men, looked up to, in certain cases, by the people. Also in 
 this primeval state of the church, when there was greater integrity 
 of soul, a more ardent love, and less ambition, the intercourse 
 between Clergy and people existed in much greater strength than 
 afterwards. Lest any one should, moreover, confound these Seniors 
 with the Presbyters of the Apostles' age, I will say in one word,- — 
 they were not prefects or rulers of the church, but Seniors of the 
 people. Beware, therefore, lest you believe there is any farther 
 mention of such Elders as these in the writings of the Apostles 
 uuder the name of Presbyters of the chm-ch. Take care lest you 
 believe, when Paid speaks in his Epistle to Timothy (1 Tim. v. 17) of 
 ' Elders who ride weU,' he is intent on describing such Seniors of the 
 pcoide. Tills name cannot be made to fit them, and docs not agree 
 with thcui. The church, after the demise of the Apostles, was luider 
 
APPENDIX. 193 
 
 the care of IJishops, Presbyters, and Deacons. If the Presbyters of 
 our church be compared with any part of the senate of the early 
 church, no doubt they must be compared with the Presbyters of the 
 church formerly so called, who themselves, as we have shown in the 
 preceding pages, were a long way ditlerent from lay Elders. The fact 
 that the scene is now changed, and that these same lay Elders ai-e 
 afterwards compared by learned men with the Seniors of the people 
 mentioned in the ancient church, rather betrays than helps the cause 
 of lay Elders." — Yitkinga Le Vet. Syna/j., lib. ii., p. 510, ad verba, 
 " J(/noscimi(S hi qiilhnsdam ecc/esiis," ^'c. 
 
 The suin of the whole matter, therefore, is, that in the later times 
 of the North African chmx-lies, — say, about the middle of the fourth 
 centur}'^, — and perhaps in a few of the Eastern or Syrian, the kind of 
 organization alluded to above was to be traced ; but it was not founded 
 on Scripture, except so far as it might be regarded as a branch of 
 the diaconate, scriptnral/ij considered : it was an arbitrary, though 
 perhaps not unwise, arrangement. It was not different in spirit, and 
 hardly in detail, from the lay stewardships of the Wesleyan economy. 
 It had no connexion with the pastoral care ; and therefore the system 
 of riding Elders, as expounded by recusant parties, is an institute and 
 invention of Calvin, — one utterly unknown in the chm-ch of Christ 
 until his day. His "graves et probati homines qui una cum Pastori- 
 bus comuumi consilio et atithoritate ecclesice discijdinain administra- 
 rent, ac essent quasi censores moribus corrigendis" (in Com. 1 Tim. 
 V. 17 ;) his " Seniores" (in Rom. xii. 8 ; 1 Cor. xii. 28,) are no 
 more really to be found in early anti([uity than they are in Scripture. 
 See likewise Lawsox's Politica Sacra et Civilis, cap. xii., p. 239. 
 London, 1689. 
 
 The testimony of the Wui-temberg Confession is to this effect : 
 " Therefore it is evident, that except an Elder be ordained in the 
 church to the ministry of teaching, he cannot rightly take unto him 
 either the name of an Elder or the name of a Bishop." — " Harmony 
 of Protestant Confessions," p. 279. P. Hall, 1842. 
 
 Note (P>), page 173. 
 
 The Presbyters were supported partly by voluntary oblations, 
 partly by a stipend paid them from the public treasury. In modern 
 synagogues, the Parnasim impose a tribute upon the different members 
 of the congregation, from which they pay the salaries of the presiding 
 Rabbi and of the Chazzan. (Beknard's Vituunga, cap. ix., p. 85.) 
 So also Jerome : "This custom has obtained in the huid of Judea to 
 
194 APPENDIX. 
 
 this very day, not only amongst ourselves, but amongst the Hebrews ; 
 viz., that they who meditate upon the law of the Lord day and night, 
 and have no portion on earth but the Lord alone, shoidd be sustained 
 by the ministering of the congregations, and of the whole earth." — 
 Jerome acl Vigil. Epis., lib. ii. " Hac in Jtideu," §"c. 
 
 Note (C), page 176. 
 
 "1. What authority has a single Leader? He has authority to 
 meet his class, to receive their contributions, and to visit the sick in 
 his class, 2. What authority have all the Leaders of a Society met 
 together? They have authority to show their class-papers to the 
 Assistant, to deliver the money they have received to the Stewards, 
 and to bring in the names of the sick. 3. But have they not authority 
 to restrain the Assistant, if they think he acts improperly ? No more 
 than any member of the Society has. After mildly spealdug to him, 
 they are to refer the thing to Mr. W. 4. Have they not authority 
 to hinder a person from preaching ? None but the Assistant has this 
 authority. 5. Have they not authority to displace a particidar 
 Leader? No more than the door-keeper has. To place and to displace 
 Leaders belongs to the Assistant alone. 6. Have they not authority 
 to expel a particular member of the Society ? No ; the Assistant only 
 can do this. 7. But have they not authority to regulate the temporal 
 and spiritual affairs of the Society ? Neither the one nor the other. 
 Temporal atfairs belong to the Stewards, spiritual to the Assistant," 
 &c. — Wesley's Works, vol. iii., pp. 426-428. 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE DIACONATE. 
 
 " It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve 
 tables. "Wherefore, brethi'en, look ye out among you seven men 
 of honest report, fidl of the Holy Ghost and ^\isdom, whom we 
 may appoint over this business." — The Tavelve. 
 
 § I. Besides the Ministers last eniimerated, said 
 to be " set fortli^' by God, and " given " by Christ,, 
 other office-bearers were appointed under the direc- 
 tion of the Apostles, and amid such circumstances as 
 to show that theirs too were intended to be stand- 
 ing functions in Christianity, — the supply of a need 
 which would always be felt. These are Deacons. As 
 the term BiaKovla implies most generally " a service 
 rendered for another,'^ and ScaKovo^ in its generic 
 sense means " a servant or agent for another," what- 
 ever may be the dignity or hmniliation of that service ; 
 so Blclkovo^;, as applied to a church office-bearer, who 
 is distinct from a Pastor, (Pastors themselves being 
 Deacons in one aspect, — Deacons of Christ,) signifies 
 a servant of the church, or one who is ready to afford 
 it such aids as the spiritual overseer, through the 
 absorbing claims of his peculiar charge, cannot ren- 
 der. And here the s3Tiagogue t}^c again appears : 
 o 2 
 
196 ITS TYPE IN THE SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 for the office-bearer named Chazzan, among the Jews, 
 discharged duties for his fellow-worshippers analo- 
 gous to those which were fulfilled by the early Chris- 
 tian Deacon, for the congregation in wliich he was 
 appointed.^ 
 
 It was to the Chazzan, no doubt, in the synagogue 
 of Nazareth, that our Lord gave the book, of the Pro- 
 phet Isaiah, after He had read a remarkable passage 
 concerning Himself. This office-bearer, in St. Luke iv. 
 20, is called virrjpir'r]';, "the minister ;'' (the early Pro- 
 testants explained it as wider-rower ;J whose duty 
 ordinarily it was, among a class of duties chiefly of a 
 secular or ritual kind, to read the sacred books, but 
 W'ho, on being sanctioned by the Ruler, was allowed 
 to give place to any devout stranger who might be 
 present. Prom the nature of things, such an arrange- 
 ment as that of committing spiritual functions to one 
 class, and secular to another, could hardly be avoided : 
 for when we remember tliat every Christian society 
 has a two-fold relation, — one towards the kingdom of 
 heaven, for wliich it is spiritually training its mem- 
 bers ; and one towards the world, the gifts of wliich it 
 is engaged to sanctify, and the social and commercial 
 arrangements of which it has to meet ; it wiU have 
 temporal, as well as strictly religious, concerns to be 
 managed. Punds have to be raised and appHed, 
 details of order and arrangement in respect of general 
 and particular acts of worship have to be devised and 
 acted on, certain compacts with civil society and civil 
 
 * " Ijjsam porro synagoyie tedem ej usque utensilia sacra dili- 
 (jenter curare, singulis prospicere, sacra ordinare, lucernas accen- 
 dere, arcam demidare, eique velum appendere, et qnce Jmjus generis 
 alia sunt minisieria." — Vitringa, lib. iii., cap. 21, p. 1127. 
 
THE PRIMITIVE SEVEN. 197 
 
 rulers have to be maintained, and instances of lack of 
 service have to be supplied ; and the design of the 
 whole is, that even the financial and merely economical 
 concerns of the Christian household shall be ordered 
 in the spirit of devotion, and with all the advantages 
 afforded by Christian wisdom and love. 
 
 § II. The appointment of the seven persons men- 
 tioned in the sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles, may be taken as the initiation of this office. 
 Several writers, ancient and modern, have demurred 
 to this, on the ground that the seven are no where 
 termed specifically hidicovoL, "Deacons -" that although 
 the daily ministration is called hiaKovia, yet tliis is so 
 far from settling their specific office, that the Apos- 
 tles themselves are represented as saying that they aaiII 
 give themselves to the hiaKovlay the "deaconship of 
 the word;" and that in the enumeration of qualifica- 
 tions by St. Paul, in I Tim. iii. 8, there is not one 
 which seems to have any reference to the function 
 which the men at Jerusalem were particularly chosen 
 to discharge, namely, the apportioning of relief 
 to the widow^s, and so to take away an unneces- 
 sary burden from the Apostles. To this it may be 
 replied, that the withholding of the name at the time 
 of institution has in it no peculiar import, especially 
 as the Avork assigned to them was called, in its most 
 general sense, a diaconate. Some official Christians 
 are aUuded to in various places of the New Testa- 
 ment, in such a connexion as to leave no doubt that 
 they are Elders ; yet they are not there specifically 
 called Elders. And as to almsgiving and the care 
 of widows not being distinctly implied by St. Paul 
 in those places where he treats of the qualifications of 
 
198 THE PRIMITIVE SEVEN. 
 
 Deacons, it is easy to suppose, on the one hand, 
 that '' the daily ministration '' and " serving tables " 
 involved something more than the mere distribution 
 of alms ; and, on the other, that when the Pirst Epistle 
 to Timothy was written, the exigencies of the churches 
 had so far increased, that the functions of the Dea- 
 cons were multiplied in equal proportion ; while con- 
 tributions to "poor saints," in a good degree, had 
 fallen into the hands of the Apostles and Evange- 
 lists themselves to distribute. There is no need, 
 therefore, to depart fi'om the general sense of the 
 Church of Christ, which, in all ages, has regarded 
 the seven at Jerusalem as Deacons, for the purpose of 
 making them into unique and extraordinary office- 
 bearers, who were to serve a special and temporary 
 purpose : for they were appointed to fulfil the out- 
 wardly economical duties which were then required 
 by the Christian community, wliile the Apostles and 
 Elders attended solely to the spiritual. It is not to 
 be inferred that there was absolutely no spiritual duty 
 confided to them, or that their temporahties were not 
 to be attended to in a Christian and devotional tem- 
 per ; but that while those who gave themselves to the 
 word of God and prayer were entirely responsible for 
 the spiritual functions, however they might occasion- 
 ally touch the details of finance and arrangement, 
 the Deacons were wholly to take the charge of the 
 church's temporalities upon themselves, however they 
 might, at certain times, discharge a spiritual task, by 
 praying or even teaching, supposing they were properly 
 qualified for it. 
 
 Extraordinary in some sort these men, no doul^t, 
 were, as being the helpers of the first extraordinary 
 
THE PRIMITIVE SEVEN. 199 
 
 office-bearers of Clirisf s church, — the Apostles, and 
 as being " full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom : '' 
 but this high form of qualification was necessary at 
 tliis period, inasmuch as the management of the 
 temporalities of the community of believers was 
 closely connected with the defence of doctrinal truth 
 and righteous disciphne. Many converted and evan- 
 gelical Jews, of nobler character than Ananias and 
 Sapplih*a, had brought their property and cast it into 
 the common fund ; and tliis fund had to be distributed 
 among claimants whose sincerity and spiritual state 
 required to be wisely investigated. Christian believers, 
 previously in competent circumstances, who Avere cast 
 off by their Jewish families, were not indisposed still to 
 abide by the social forms of their religion : but many 
 of the Galilseans, and the Hellenists, who came from 
 Gentile cities, some of whom, indeed, were actual Gen- 
 tiles, and religiously such in almost everything, excej^it 
 as to their behef in Christ and revealed truth, held the 
 Jewish yoke much more loosely. These persons obtain- 
 ing the salvation of the Gospel at the same time with 
 the pure Jews, they became naturally jealous lest the 
 Messiah^s church should be restricted to the Jewish 
 form, and hampered by its impositions. Here was the 
 germ of the great controversy between Jew and Gen- 
 tile, into which the Apostles Paul and Peter had 
 afterwards to throw themselves with all the authority 
 of their inspiration. Yet not only was there required 
 a doctrinal settlement of the question, as to whether 
 the observance of the ceremonial law was necessary to 
 salvation ; but men, full of the Holy Ghost and wis- 
 dom, — filled with a deep perception of what the king- 
 dom of Christ on earth was to be, — were needful to 
 
200 FEMALES. 
 
 move ill tlie midst of this conflicting mass of mind ; 
 and to order even matters of daily detail, sncli as 
 providing for widows, and for the great sacred and 
 religious feast of commemorating Clirist^s death, — for 
 the phrase " serving tables/^ as that of " breaking of 
 bread/^ Acts ii. 42, most probably includes this, — so 
 that, wliile prejudice was innocently conciliated on 
 either side, there should be no compromise of the 
 word and law of Christ ; and especially that no nice 
 and delicate views of the question between Jew and 
 Gentile should interfere with the greater provisions 
 of the Kingdom of Heaven. The first Deacons were 
 gifted in proportion to the gifts of those whom they 
 Avere required to aid, and in proportion to the emer- 
 gency they had to serve. The relation between Pas- 
 tor and Deacon, then, was proportionably the same as 
 it is now : if the pastorate is now of a lower type, so 
 is the diaconate. 
 
 § III. That pious females in the times of tlie Apos- 
 tles were intrusted with this charge, is evident from 
 St. Paul commending Pliebe, a deaconess {BtdKovo<;) 
 of the church at Cenchrea, to the regards of the 
 Romans, charging them to assist her in whatsoever busi- 
 ness or affair she had need of them : '' Por,^"* adds the 
 Apostle, "she hath been a succourer,^^ or "protectress,^^ 
 " of many, and of myself also.''^ This succour woidd 
 seem, from the context, to have been that of affording 
 sustentation and guardianship to the persecuted ser- 
 vants of Christ, at a time when Jew and Gentile Avere 
 alike banded against tliem. They are not to be con- 
 founded with the elder women, nrpea^vTuhe^, men- 
 tioned by St. Paul in Titus ii. 3 : these being evi- 
 dently private Christians to whom passing tasks 
 
DEACONS EARLY DISPLACED. 201 
 
 were confided, tlioiigh both classes were, no doubt, 
 adapted to a state of Christian society in Avhicli 
 young females were peculiarly lielpless and dependent, 
 because of the rage of their heathen relatives against 
 tliem, and from the consequent withdrawment of 
 relative sui)port. Pastoral intercoiu'se with such was 
 then a matter of greater dehcacy, from the prevalent 
 tone of usage and feeling ; and hence the influence of 
 godly women, to arrange the affairs of economy and 
 finance in respect of all such, and to direct their con- 
 duct, was indispensable. It was not necessary that 
 the Deacon's office should always in part be filled by 
 females, for the state of society might alter ; but it 
 was necessary that there should always be Deacons in 
 the church. Besides these and the pastoral class, no 
 other office-bearers are mentioned. St. Paul addresses 
 Ins Epistle to the Philippians, to the Bishops and 
 Deacons ; and in liis directions to Timothy and Titus 
 no other ecclesiastical persons appear. 
 
 § lY. Por the first century after the death of the 
 Apostles, there is dearth of information as to the 
 exact position and functions of the diaconate, as, 
 indeed, there is on all subjects connected with the 
 l)ohty of the church ; but when we come to the age 
 of Cyprian, we find Deacons reckoned as one of 
 the orders of the Clergy, and that the}/ were ordained 
 to tlieir office by imposition of the Bishop^ s hands. 
 This, however, was connected with such circumstances 
 as to show that a departure from the simplicity of 
 Scripture, in this particular, had taken place; and was 
 one indication amongst others of that sacerdotal 
 spirit which was then stealing upon the clmrch ; such 
 a spirit having been cherished by Christian apologists. 
 
202 NOT OF THE PASTORATE. 
 
 who were desirous of making the best case they could 
 against the Jews^ and seeking to win them over by 
 the lure of a nobler^ that is^ more spiritual^ hierarchy. 
 Deacons^ however, in the third century, were found 
 equally ordained with other office-bearers, such as 
 Sub-deacons, Eeaders, Acolji^hs, Exorcists, respecting 
 whom it is not pretended that there is a word of 
 information or direction in Holy Scripture; and, 
 excepting so far as that their ancestry in olfice were 
 actually designated by the Apostles, and ordained by 
 imposition of hands. Deacons would be compelled to 
 rest upon the same authority as their humbler office- 
 bearers for their place amongst the cleri. Mere 
 imposition of hands and prayer, however, were no 
 proof of their separation to the work of God; for 
 this rite, so general in its import, was used over the 
 sick amongst the members, and, after the example of 
 Christ, over children. Besides tliis, there could be 
 only one reason for their being taken into the ranks 
 of the pastoral ministry, — their occasional fidfilment 
 (so it may be gathered from the Epistles of Paul to 
 Timothy) of spiritual acts, as that of minor teaching, 
 and in that way ministering to the chief teacher. 
 But if no one can perform a spiritual act in Christ's 
 church, except one who is especiall}'" ordained to 
 exercise it, then every such act takes the form of 
 ojpus operatimi; the Spirit that worketh in all is 
 grievously insulted, and Christianity, so represented, 
 is altogether another thing from that which glows 
 upon the pages of the K'ew Testament. The freedom 
 on the part of a Deacon to act in some cases of neces- 
 sity, is only a proper vindication of Christian liberty, all 
 the more appropriate from the ecclesiastical station of 
 
DEACONS SIMPLY DEFINED. 203 
 
 the party ; while, on the other hand, the solemn sepa- 
 ration of persons who shall statedly preach, administer 
 the sacraments, and rnle, is an equal vindication of 
 the special call of God, and the necessary provision 
 for the order and peace of the church. That Deacons 
 do not scripturally belong to the pastoral ministry, is 
 evident from this simple circumstance : — it was to 
 preserve the integrity and separation of the pastoral 
 ministry that they were appointed : they were to 
 serve tables, while the others gave themselves to 
 the ministry of the word and prayer. This fact is 
 so eddent, that even high episcopal systems, in 
 some sort, recognise it, restraining the decidedly 
 spiritual functions of Deacons to conditions and cases 
 of especial permission, and only consigning their 
 auxiliary and economical fimctions to their own dis- 
 cretion and responsibility. Thus the office in the 
 Church of England for the ordering of Deacons : 
 "It appertaineth to the office of a Deacon in the 
 church, when he shall be appointed to serve, to assist 
 the Priest in Divine service, and specially when he 
 ministereth the holy Communion, and help him in 
 the distribution thereof, and to read Holy Scriptures 
 and Homilies in the church, and to instruct the youth 
 in the Catechism ; in the absence of the Priest, to bap- 
 tize infants, and to preach, if he he admitted thereto 
 hij the Bishop. And furthermore, it is his office, 
 when provision is so made, to search for the sick, 
 l^oor, and impotent people of the parish, to intimate 
 their estates, names, and places where they dwell, 
 unto the Curate, that by his exhortation they may be 
 relieved with the alms of the parishioners, or others." 
 And thus the rubric of the Roman Pontifical : " The 
 
204 SOME CALLED '^ DEACONS " WEUE PASTOTIS ACTUAL. 
 
 Pontiff alone, stretcliing forth liis right hand, puts it 
 on the head of each one that is to be ordained, and 
 no one else [that is, no Presbyter] puts hands on 
 with him, because they are not consecrated to priest- 
 hood, but to ministry — i. e. attendance on the priest- 
 hood/^^ In a recent instance in the diocese of 
 Exeter, the Bishop admitted several persons to Dea- 
 cons^ orders, restraining them, at the same time, from 
 the functions of preaching, or, what is the same thing, 
 purposely withholding the license to preach. 
 
 In the Scripture view, therefore, the Elder is 
 regarded as separated to the Gospel of God, labour- 
 ing in the word and doctrine ; the Deacon, as taking 
 up so much of the temporal cares of the church, and 
 even of the Elder too, as to leave the latter unham- 
 pered scope for his personal influence in all that con- 
 cerns the guidance, order, and edification of the flock, 
 as well as the conversion of siimers. He is the Pas- 
 tor's assistant, friend, and stay. If in the pages of 
 ecclesiastical history we find persons in tliis order, 
 whose wisdom, energy, and piety were found to be 
 exercised beneficially towards the spiritual edification 
 of God^s people, — such as Pontius, the panegyrist 
 and Deacon of Cyprian; Athanasius, in his earlier 
 day contending for the truth in the Council of Nice ; 
 Ephrem, the learned and devout Syrian ; Paulinus, of 
 Milan, who opposed Pelagius, — we are bound to 
 believe that, notwithstanding they were so misplaced, 
 through the operation of the sacerdotal spirit just 
 
 * " PonUfex solus, manum dexteram extendens, ponit super ciii- 
 li.bet ordinando, et nullus alius, quia mm ad sacerdotinm, sed ad 
 ministerinm consecrantur ; dicens svujidis" ^"c. — " Puntijicale 
 Romaman," Pars Prima. 
 
QUALIFICATIONS. 205 
 
 spoken of, yet they were fit to be true slieplierds of the 
 fioek neeordiug- to the will of our Lord Jesus Clirist: 
 and the error of the church lay, not in receiving them to 
 ministerial communion, but in neglecting to put them 
 into their proper position with the Clergy. And so, in 
 modern days, those who are admitted to the pastorate 
 of the Chm-cli of England, or similar churches, may 
 not be the less entitled to their place in that ministry, 
 because they happen to be misnamed, or not quite 
 scripturally classed. 
 
 § V. Let us hear, however, St. Paul : " Likewise 
 must the Deacons be grave :" if seriousness be espe- 
 cially becoming, it is where a man in ordinary life, 
 and exposed to the full influence and excitement 
 of its cares, is called to connect liimself officially 
 with the house of God. Exposed to the disadvan- 
 tages of secular occupation, that exposure must, at 
 least, be guarded by seriousness. "Not double- 
 tongued j" acting the mutual helper botli of Pastor, 
 on the one hand, and member, on the other, his 
 intercourse with both must needs be candid, truth- 
 ful, and luminous in the highest degree; always 
 one, and always the same ; heart and lips never bely- 
 ing each other. " Not given to much wine ;'' asserting 
 the believers'' power over the sensual appetencies, and 
 keeping them down. ^'Not greedy offiWiy lucre ;" so 
 that no financial transactions in the chui'ch shall be 
 distorted or marred by the stamp of that base idolatry, 
 even supposing a commercial integrity be preserved. 
 "Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure con- 
 science;" that all professed spuitual knowledge and 
 experience may stand in connexion with such a dread 
 of actual sin, whether of the flesh or of the spirit. 
 
206 MODERN TYPES. 
 
 that it shall be always fought against and avoided, 
 the conscience acquiring a sacred instinct of it, and 
 thus imbuing all practical subordinate teaching ; fill- 
 ing it with sacred passion, making the word of truth 
 fraught with the spirit of truth, and leading to the 
 holding of the truth in unimpaked purit}^ '^Let 
 these also first be proved; then let them use the 
 office of a Deacon, being found blameless/^ Human 
 nature in all departments of rehgious duty is to be 
 assumed as insufficient and unprepared of itself; and 
 the point to be tested is, who will cast himself 
 more fully upon the supplies of Divine grace. This 
 arrangement runs through every department of the 
 kingdom of God, — trial and difficulty first, honour and 
 responsibility after. 
 
 "For they that have used the office of a Deacon well," 
 TrepLTTOLovvTaL, — " acquire or obtain for themselves a 
 good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is 
 in Christ Jesus." It is by practice that Christianity 
 is put to the proof; and he who has passed tlirough 
 the often delicate and often severe tests, presented by 
 the duties of the diaconate, without loss of faith, 
 love, or hmnility, shall be regarded as a competent 
 witness of these graces, and shall be more fully fimight 
 with them all ; shall have a deeper in\vrought convic- 
 tion of the Di\ane character of his rehgion, and be 
 prepared for a good and yet higher degree of service, 
 — that is, for the pastorate. 
 
 § YI. And now, in applying these scriptm-al deduc- 
 tions to the subject before us, the candid Wesleyan is 
 bound to confess that his system of church order 
 does not exactly exhibit the Deacon^'s office, as it 
 existed in the primitive churches. In this respect, 
 
MAY BE MOULDED. 207 
 
 liowever, he does not stand alone. In the Chnrch of 
 England, a young man from Oxford or Cambridge, 
 just admitted to this order, never thinks of continuing 
 in it, — it is merely Vigradus hastily passed over towards 
 the presbyterate. He may read prayers and baptize, for 
 an Incumbent, and bury the dead, and superintend a 
 school, and occasionally preach ; but aU these are mat- 
 ters of probationary introduction to something higher ; 
 and the office is rarely held for more than a year, 
 often for not more than a few months ; so that those 
 who hold it have no settled aims or purposes beyond 
 that of getting through its allotted term. Thus the 
 diaconate can hardly be said to have a practical 
 existence ; for himdreds of the largest churches in that 
 EstabHshment have no Deacons at all. It will hardly 
 be pretended that this is primitive and apostolical. 
 Then, in Presbyterian Churches, so fully do ruling 
 Elders transact all those affairs which the New Testa- 
 ment assigns to the persons we are considering, as we 
 have already seen, that these latter are almost unknown 
 amongst them ; and where, in a few modern instances, 
 tliey are found, it is chiefly to give a nominally ecclesi- 
 astical completeness to the system. Exact primitive 
 usage cannot, then, be pretended here. Nor would the 
 candid Congregational Christian make a claim to this 
 extent either ; though I am free to confess the Deacons 
 of this body seem to me to approach the primitive 
 pattern nearer than any other. AU tliis is in proof 
 that good men in aU ages of Christianity have felt 
 tliemselves at liberty to mould an office which, it is 
 true, the Apostles devised and sanctioned, and which 
 must therefore be regarded as sanctioned by Christ, 
 but which, inasmuch as it was called forth by the tern- 
 
208 WESLEYAN VIEW. 
 
 poral necessities of the clmrclies, may, by the varying 
 of these temporal necessities, be itself, in its details of 
 duty, varied. There has never been an attempt to 
 make the pastorate so plastic : serious Christians have 
 always felt they could not touch an institution " given " 
 by Christ, and " set in the church " by God. A very 
 simple principle sets forth the scriptural difference 
 between the two : the one takes charge mainly of the 
 spiritual, the other mainly of the temporal, concerns of 
 the church. 
 
 The Wesleyan system can no more dispense with 
 this office than any other ; and however the New Tes- 
 tament term may be omitted, yet virtually the duties 
 of the diaconate are discharged in it upon a scale 
 larger than is known in any communion of Chris- 
 tendom : some of them, indeed, are devolved upon 
 godly persons who, in the high scriptural sense of 
 that word, hold no office. It may be matter of regret 
 that the scriptural designation has not been preserved; 
 — and its omission may be accounted for on the ground 
 of Mr. Wesle/s unwilKngness to adopt church terms 
 to distinguish his office-bearers, while the Methodist 
 Societies, according to his apprehension at first, consti- 
 tuted a kind of order in the Chiu-ch of England, a 
 society which had ordained Deacons of its own. But 
 the necessities of the early Methodists called forth, 
 first, the Society Stewards, (for they arose before any 
 other subordinate functionaries,) who received the 
 contributions of the people, and rendered a proper 
 account of them; then the Circuit Stewards, wlio 
 received the funds of the last-mentioned, and disbursed 
 them, watching over their appropriation to the sup- 
 port of the ministry, and everything else needful, with 
 
WESLEYAN VIEW. 209 
 
 economical care; thentlieStewardsof tliePoo'r^wlio took 
 charire of the collections made in their own appropri- 
 ate department, admiiiistered in visitation relief to the 
 indigent and afflicted, and provided for the love-feasts 
 and the Lord's table. These are essentially diaconal 
 duties ; and if the charge were conferred for life, we 
 might grieve, not only at the substitution of another 
 term — that of " Steward '^ — for the scriptural one of 
 "Deacon," but at the absence of those solemnities 
 connected with the appointment, such as prayer and 
 imposition of hands, which were observed in the 
 apostolical and ancient days; particularly when the 
 Steward happens to be Leader as well, and so fulfils a 
 spiritual duty. But amongst oui'selves the office is 
 usually only held for two years, and the holder is, 
 indeed, to be re-elected at the end of one ; and it is 
 not a little remarkable that a system which has been 
 held forth by its enemies to the opprobrium of the 
 world, as being tyrannous and irresponsible in its 
 administration, should so provide that the use of local 
 funds, and the discharge of secular functions, may 
 be put into the hands successively, in a few years, of 
 every devout, respectable, and consistent man in each 
 Society who is found competent for the post. The 
 privilege, if it be any, instead of being confined to one 
 or two for life, is given to all the more suitable per- 
 sons in the community concerned ; and when an office 
 is held for so short a time, and utterly lapses at length 
 as to the individual, a solemn ordination would be 
 most unseemly, and could not fail to offend the spirit- 
 ual perception of all persons Avho carefully thought on 
 the matter. That Methodism has saved the New- 
 Testament principle of the diaconate, all candid men 
 p 
 
210 AM<:SLEYAN VIEW. 
 
 must allow; tliat it has not preserved the verbal 
 designation^ nor altogether upheld the dignity of the 
 office, must be conceded. But the defect is not on 
 the side of j^astorab but popular, influence : it does 
 not aid aristocratical, but democraticab tendencies 
 in the ordering of church-affairs. If our diaconal 
 assistants are not eminent enough, it is because others 
 must share the eminence with them. The lowering 
 of individual importance is the price which men must 
 pay for an honest democracy. If we must bear the 
 stigma of being unscripturab negatively, at least, 
 in this single point of detaib let it be clearly under- 
 stood whose case is met by this allowed short- 
 coming: it is an attempt to bring into office and 
 governing influence all who by any possibility can pre- 
 sent claims and qualifications for being invested there- 
 with. The Wesleyan mhiistry has nothing to hide ; 
 and it provides that as many as possible shall look 
 into its temporalities, and exercise a proper influence 
 in the right ordering of them to tlieir proper end. 
 Some would include Wesleyan Leaders and Local 
 Preachers in the diaconal body : and, indeed, in a 
 former publication,^ above ten years ago, I have done 
 this; and mainly on the ground that as ancient Deacons, 
 at least those who lived soon after the age of the Apo- 
 stles, were found statedly fulfilling spiritual amongst 
 their other duties, taking part in pubhc and private 
 worship, and assisting in religious teaching ; so these 
 our brethren, whose charge among us was altogether 
 spirituab though subordinate as to its position, might 
 be reckoned in their rank and mimbcr. But further 
 
 * " Essay on the Pastoral Office." 
 
WESLEYAN VIEW. 211 
 
 reflection lias convinced me that this arrangement is 
 incorrect, inasmuch as the original ordination of Dea- 
 cons was not to the care of souls, but to the serving 
 of tables, and, in economical matters, the serving of 
 the church ; that whatever spiritual functions they 
 were called upon by the necessities of churches to dis- 
 charge, those functions were temporary and acci- 
 dental, not called forth by official responsibihty, l3ut 
 by a general engagement to serve the church. Thus, 
 MJiile all the office-bearers are ministers in a general 
 acceptation of the word, Pastors, in scriptural repre- 
 sentation, are directly Ministers of Christ, and respon- 
 sible to Him; while Deacons are directly Ministers 
 of the chui'ch, and responsible to it : yet not to slur the 
 truth, that they also are ultimately responsible to 
 Christ in the same sense in which every one of us is 
 obhged to give account of himself for the spirit and 
 motive of all his actions. 
 
 § YII. With humility, however, honour is con- 
 nected ; but the honour of the Deacon^s office is so 
 pure and unearthly that none but a spiritual mind can 
 ])erceive and value it. If a man shall aim at this 
 position in the temper of Felicissimus at Carthage, 
 simply because it will enable him to control minis- 
 terial appohitments and changes, to lead on and 
 embody the hasty impulses of the popular will, and 
 affect the external relations of the Cln-istian body by 
 virtue of his politico-religious status ; then an eye, so 
 far from being single, will only have a marred and 
 darkened vision of the object, and will be discontented 
 ^ith it, and will look to something higher. But the 
 true servant of Christ^s church, whose object in taking 
 office is to promote peace and the salvation of souls, 
 p 2 
 
212 WESLEYAN YIEW. 
 
 and put (lo\vn sin, will see in liis position heaven and 
 earth, things spiritual and tilings temporal, meeting 
 together ; not as they are supposed to blend the func- 
 tions of Pastors and of laymen, thereby confounding 
 both; not as they are held to meet together in the 
 Pope, or Cardinal, or Prince-Bishop, of the Church 
 of Rome, — a Gentilism wliich Christ solemnly pro- 
 liibited in His charge to Zebedee^s children; but as all 
 gathering of funds, aU regulations in church-meetings, 
 and, in a word, all economical tasks whatever, are 
 made to shine out with radiancy tlirough the sim- 
 pHcity, heavenly-mindedness, and love of the chief 
 mover. The body is eartlily, — the soul is from above. 
 The radiancy is that of a cloud which gathers beneath 
 the rising sun ; it is drawn from the ocean of alternate 
 storms and cabns ; it is fringed mth warm and silvery 
 glory by the heavenly light wliich falls upon it, though 
 no part of its own nature ; and, when the hour of rain 
 comes, the thirsty earth shall receive the benefit. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LIBERTY OF CHRISTIAN SERVICE. 
 "Would God that aU the Lord's people were Prophets!" — Moses. 
 
 In maintaining the universal priesthood of God's 
 people, we go as far as any writers of any school of 
 theolog}^ have gone ; but the question of sacerdotal- 
 ism has nothing to do with that which is before us. 
 Tliere may be in Christianity a holy nation, or ^aai' 
 Xecov lepdrev/jLa, a ^^ royal priesthood/' according to 
 the \'iew of St. Peter; (1 Peter ii. 9;) and yet there 
 may be within tliis community certain differences, 
 between the members, of position and relation. These 
 differences are recognised in Scripture, and shown 
 forth as included in collateral images, — the house- 
 liold, the sheepfold, and the army. Thus, in the 
 second century, while the ardent TertuUian regarded 
 every true Christian as a sacerdos, with no less ardour 
 he repelled the faction and disorder of those who 
 would make a man to be ^ Minister one day, and a 
 layman the next."^ The essence of priesthood is 
 mediatorship with God ; and however ofiicial persons 
 under the Old Testament were in ancient times 
 appointed so to mediate. Scripture itself has concluded 
 that this function is now wholly absorbed by our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, in His own personal work and interces- 
 sion. He appears as the One Mediator between the 
 
 * Be Prascript. Hareticorum, cap. 41. 
 
214 PASTORATE NO PRIESTHOOD. 
 
 world and the Father; but no one may presume to 
 intrude between Him and the souls He came to save, 
 inasmuch as it would be supplementing, and therefore 
 offering indignity unto, His all-perfect ministry ; for no 
 less than the guilt of blasphemy would be incurred, in 
 saying that any appHcant brings a more sympatliising 
 and spotless humanity before the throne of grace, or, 
 on the other hand, a more glorious dignity, than He. 
 Yea, rather, I would say, none must presume in His 
 name to perform His acts, or dispense His blessings, 
 accounting all these as works wrought, or characters 
 impressed ; for all this is to place Him at a great dis- 
 tance, whose most endearing title is, " God with us," 
 and to arrogate for sinful man a position which he 
 has no qualification to fill. 
 
 These truths have been declared in the doctrines of 
 Methodism Avith a clearness and power which can 
 find no parallel in the history of the chiu-ch : no reli- 
 gious body has ever more flatly opposed ministerial 
 sacerdotalism. It is therefore a lamentable want of 
 candour on the part of opponents who find fault with 
 what they deem the undue amount of pastoral power 
 amongst us, in that they are continually harping 
 upon the words "hierarchy," "priestly influence," 
 " priestcraft," and the like ; as though the pastorate, 
 which is a stewardship for Christ, and the sacerdotal 
 office, were the same thing. If this were merely the 
 rhetoric of popular and schismatic adventurers, igno- 
 rant of the proper value of the words they used, it 
 would be unwortliy of notice ; but when it becomes 
 the style of thoughtful and well-read men, it betokens 
 rather a desire to speak ad captinidnm, and flatter 
 the prejudice of the reader, than do justice to 
 
MINISTRY AND LAITY. 215 
 
 the argument under consideration. Let Romanists 
 and Eomanisers bear all the consequences of their 
 own theory : those consequences do not touch us. 
 If the distinction between ministry and laity be 
 asserted to Ke in the supposed sacerdotalism of the 
 former, then there was no such distinction in the 
 Apostles^ days ; for there were then no Priests : but if 
 it be asserted to lie, which is the point we maintain, 
 in their separation to the work of teaching and ruling, 
 then the distinction was as real in the Apostles^ days 
 as it is now. Was it not so, indeed, under the older 
 dispensation? Did not Moses, the shepherd of 
 Jethro's flock, become the shepherd of the chosen 
 people, without detriment to the functions of the 
 Aaronical priesthood, and without confusing them? 
 and, in after-years, under the established theocracy, 
 were there not Pastors in God's heritage, as well as 
 Prophets and Priests? and were not their several 
 acts and exercises at once distinct and harmonious ? 
 The spiritual shepherd's office involves a power un- 
 questionably, or it becomes a nullity : but this is not 
 a power to come in and mediate between the sinner 
 and the Saviour, but in that Savioui-'s name to feed 
 and guide the flock, including, under the first parti- 
 cular, the achnhiistration of Gospel truth; under the 
 second, the discipline of those who profess to receive 
 it; never, even in the case of impenitent offenders, 
 stretching that power beyond the exclusion of the 
 party from the Christian society, and leaving all 
 absolute judgment in the hands of Christ. 
 
 As soon as a man becomes a member of the king- 
 dom of lieaven by regeneration, he is not only a new 
 creature, but tlie subject of a new responsibility, lie 
 
216 SOURCE OF INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 is laid under obligation to promote tlie interests of 
 the spiritual and heavenly constitution into the fellow- 
 ship of which he is admitted. Preely he received, 
 and now he is required freely to give. God, by 
 making man the instrument of saving man, opens, in 
 the bosom of every faitliful winner of souls, a stream 
 of new and purest haj^piness. Our knowledge of God 
 even is not for our personal delectation; it is in 
 order that others may know and glorify Him : it is 
 the lighting up of another and yet another star, till 
 the whole firmament glows with light. To use scrip- 
 ture imagery, it is the one or two talents given by 
 the rightful Lord and Proprietor to His servant, that 
 he may trade with them, and seek their increase ; in 
 which course he will find, for his sphere of action, that 
 " the world " is his. From this it will follow, that the 
 liberty to speak and act for Christ, is concurrent with 
 the power of doing so, provided always that the every- 
 day duties arising out of commercial, civil, domestic, 
 and other relations, are all diligently discharged. It 
 is a liberty not llowing out of a general sacerdotaHsm, 
 but from the doctrine of a gratefully acknowledged 
 responsibility; which doctrine is impressively laid 
 down in the Sermon on the Mount, and the Parable 
 of the Talents. It is a freedom to serve Christ, not 
 to subvert His order ; to supplement and harmonise 
 with His pastoral institution, not to merge and 
 destroy it; to perform Christian and loving tasks, 
 even those of a spiritual nature, for our fellow-men ; 
 not to usurp, or, what in such a case is nearly the 
 same thing, make nugatory, a spiritual office : and, 
 being a liberty to serve Christ, it will need, in the 
 case of various individuals, to be guided intelligently 
 
OBLIGATION AND FREEDOM. 217 
 
 towards that end, just as much as the freedom of a 
 British citizen would need to be guided, in any pro- 
 posed act of loyal attachment to the throne, by legal 
 information and dii'ection of the bar or the magis- 
 tracy. The freedom to do a spiritual act, in an 
 emergency when love constrains and opportunity 
 calls, is surely a very different tiling from the fixed 
 obHgation of official responsibility, in creating which 
 responsibihty the call of God and personal dedication 
 are all concerned. 
 
 May not a sensible man, in a very plain case, 
 administer medical aid to the sickly and dying, if the 
 physician is overtasked or away ? But if he should 
 turn presumptuous, and say, " Away wdth physicians, 
 and break up their college \" he would no longer be 
 sensible, but a fool. The instincts of mankind would 
 never suffer this flippant deahng Avhere the welfare of 
 the community was so deeply staked ; nor would those 
 insthicts, which are rather intelligent convictions, 
 allow of anHliing else than that the voluntary helper 
 should give way in the presence of the tested and 
 qualified professor ; or, if, in great emergences, a large 
 number of unprofessional people should be employed 
 to render help to the sick and injured, that, at least, 
 they should not refuse to be guided by the larger 
 knowledge and experience of the medical board. The 
 highest analogy of this sort is found in the ecclesiasti- 
 cal arrangements of Christianity. There is the divinely 
 appointed office, requiring a tested qualification and 
 vocation in him who holds it, in order that the Gospel 
 may certainly be taught, and its requirements kept, 
 and that successive holders may be continually pro- 
 vided : but still this does not hinder that pious per- 
 
218 OFFICIAL AND VNOFFICIAL SERVICE. 
 
 SOUS Oil (MereuT occasions may teach, or help eveii to 
 adiuimsterj when help is required, or when no otticial 
 administrator is ne;ir. In all these tilings, both 
 human and heavenly wisdom show us, that the indi- 
 \"idual freedom is directed by the office, not the office 
 subverted or made of none effect by the freedom ; for in 
 Christ's church liberty is harmony with law, not release 
 from it. " "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is 
 liberty : " and the Holy Ghost camiot be supposed to 
 confound and destroy, by His occasional bequests to 
 individuals, those institutions of the kingdom of 
 heaven which it is His especial work from age to age 
 to maintain. 
 
 Turning from these preliminary considerations to 
 the ScripUiral contirmation of them, we shall hnd in 
 the Xew-Testament history that many believers were 
 found occasionally doing spiritual acts, who had 
 received no official designation or ordination. I refer 
 as well to those who had received the ^(apia/iaTa, or 
 special "gifts" of the Holy Ghost, for the edidcation of 
 the infant communities, as to those who appeared to 
 act and live under the ordinary influence of sanctifying 
 grace. Tlius it is said of the church at Jerusalem, 
 scauered by persecution, that "they went even- 
 where preaching the word." (Acts viii. 4.) Doubt- 
 less the Elders amongst these, or some of the seventy 
 ordained by Christ liimself, as being most promi- 
 nent, would be most hkely to bear the chief weight 
 of the persecution ; and, also, it was likely that those 
 who were restrained from going into the ^*illages of 
 the Samaritans by Christ before His death, in order 
 to give every evangelical advantage to the lost sheep 
 of the house of Israel, were everv wav most fitted to 
 
UNOFFICIAL PRIMITIVE TEACHING. 219 
 
 repair the defect arising from that restraint by now 
 spreading their sacred lire throughout Samaria ; and 
 further, that they were all, more or less, gifted for the 
 work, and authorised to fulfil it, by the miraculous 
 influences of the Spirit which fell upon the one hundred 
 and twenty, and again upon the subsequent assembly. 
 (Acts iv. 31.) Eut still, let the broadest and largest 
 view which the history can suggest be taken, — let it 
 be freely granted that unministerial and unofficial 
 Clu:istians went and boldly preached the word, — 
 there is nothing in all this to mar or interfere "\nth 
 the order which Christ has established in His church. 
 Persecution, when extreme, is an event which loosens 
 the common institutions of society, both civil and 
 religious : and as cliildren must act as fathers, and those 
 who woidd otherwise be G:uided as c^uides, when fathers 
 and guides are taken away, so zealous and loving Chris- 
 tians, when their spiritual heads are few, or removed 
 from them, or when they themselves are cast into a 
 sphere where there has been no previous witnessing 
 for Christ at all, are bound to bear their testimony 
 for Him mitil the appointment of ^Ministers shall 
 take place. 
 
 The defence of Stephen before the Council can 
 hardly be quoted in this case : it was rather a forensic 
 than a religious or ecclesiastical act. But Phihp is 
 said to have preached to the people of Samaria ; and 
 if he were not the Apostle who bore that name, he 
 woidd, doubtless, be PhiHp, one of the seven who were 
 chosen to serve tables. It is true, this person is 
 described, in Acts xxi. 8, as an Evangelist, and, there- 
 fore, a preacher by office ; but he might not as yet 
 have received his evangelistic designation. As the 
 
220 UNOFFICIAL TEACHERS. 
 
 Spirit moved upon the face of the waters in the mate- 
 rial creation, when He moulded the earth into form 
 and beauty, before He brought the regular influence 
 of sun and moon to move upon them, to produce the 
 tidal flow and reflux in the ocean, and the exube- 
 rant and lasting life of the organisms on land, — so, in 
 the spiritual. He ruled supreme and sovereign in all 
 hearts, and used whom He would, until the church 
 of Clu-ist was settled into order, to gather in the ordi- 
 nary way souls for eternity. And then, while He estab- 
 lished and confirmed Christ^ s positive institutions in 
 respect of the ministry. He provided for an universal 
 freedom to witness for Christ, by confession or by 
 teaching, in those exigencies in which lower or non- 
 dedicated gifts might avail for a present purpose : for, 
 the persecution just alluded to being over, you hear no 
 more of Philip till you hear of him as an Evangelist."^ 
 Proceeding onwards, we have Priscilla and Aquila, 
 — "tent-makers," yet, in relation to St. Paul, his 
 " helpers in Christ Jesus.'" These, too, were fiigati, 
 — Christian Jews driven away from Eome by the 
 Emperor Claudius ; and they wandered ikst to Corinth, 
 and then to Ephesus; in which latter place they 
 instructed more fully in the way of the Lord the elo- 
 quent ApoUos, who already had begun to preach in 
 the synagogue : and, more than this, they gathered in 
 each place of their temporary abode a chui'ch in their 
 house. (Eom. xvi. 5; 1 Cor. xvi. 19.) Besides these, 
 the Apostle refers to " Urbane, our helper in Christ," 
 " Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labour in the Lord," 
 "the beloved Persis, which laboured much in the 
 
 * See Note (A), Appendix. 
 
UNOFFICIAL TEACHING. 221 
 
 Lord." Some of these who are thus mentioned in 
 the Apostle's salutations here, may have been regularly 
 appointed Ministers over the flock, waiting on their pro- 
 phecy, ministry, teacliing, ruling, and the like, accord- 
 ingly as they are exhorted in the twelfth chapter of 
 the Epistle, in connexion ^Yith. those who, like the 
 Apostle, had been subjected to imprisonment, were of 
 note among the Apostles, and were in Clirist before 
 him : but as several of the names are those of females, 
 we proceed upon the largest supposition, that in those 
 days of travel, strife, persecution, and exigency, the 
 labours of Apostles, Evangelists, and Elders, were 
 every way supplemented and aided by the efforts of 
 otherAnse retired Cliristians, who spoke, accordingly 
 as they had ability, to believers and unbehevers, and 
 served their infant communities in any way which 
 might be required. At Philippi, according to the 
 Epistle, there Avere women who laboured with the 
 Apostle in the Gospel; and at the head of these, 
 no doubt, was Lydia, the seller of purple, and con- 
 vert of Paul, whose energy is so briefly, yet graphically, 
 marked in the sixteenth chapter of the Acts of the 
 Apostles. 
 
 These instances are sufficient for our purpose ; and 
 whether the founder of ^Methodism had them in his 
 eye or not, the evangelical necessities of his position, 
 wliich in such a case are the leadings of Providence, 
 drew him into a close imitation of them. When he 
 and his co-Pastors were overtasked with the labour of 
 privately advising with, and exhorting, those who 
 desired to flee from the wrath to come, he willingly 
 accc])ted the aid of godly men and women among the 
 people, aaIio were at hand, for tliis purpose; and thus 
 
9 
 
 LEADERS AND LOCAL PEEACHEES. 
 
 arose the Leaders : and as the separated ministry conld 
 not possibl}^ furnish continnous instruction in all the 
 towns and villages of our country which at that time 
 were destitute of Gospel teachings this deficiency became 
 supplied^ as far as was possible^ by the labours of pious 
 laymen, — persons who still followed their worldly 
 callings ; who were not at the entire disposal of the 
 Societies or the Ministers, to be sent anywhere in the 
 world, — for their special Christian obligations lay in 
 the sphere of commercial, professional, or industrial 
 life; who had not professed to hear the voice of 
 Clu-ist, commanding them to leave all, and follow 
 Him ; but who, from love to souls, and zeal for the 
 Gospel cause, w^ere willing to devote as much time and 
 energy, to eke out evangelistic labour, by preaching 
 and exhortation, as convenience and their other avoca- 
 tions would allow. Thus, as it is w^ell known, Origen, 
 in the tliird centmy, was permitted to preach, wliile yet 
 a layman ; and several Bishops in his day defended the 
 permission, as one which w^as warranted by a frequent 
 usage. In the way mentioned above, the Local or lay 
 Preachers w^ere originated. The word " Local" being 
 in use before the complete and formal severance of 
 the Methodists from the Church of England, and the 
 recognition of the Wesleyan Pastorate, took place, it 
 was chiefly used to distinguish them from the Preach- 
 ers, emphatically so called, who were wholly devoted 
 to the work, travelled statedly over extensive Circuits, 
 and blended the evangehstic and pastoral functions 
 together. In many instances their natui'al endow^- 
 ments were equal to those of their Ministers ; in a few 
 instances they Avere, perhaps, superior. But here was 
 the difference between the two classes : — the lay 
 
LEADERS, &C. 223 
 
 Preachers never offered to act under Christ's great 
 commission, to " go into all the world, and preach the 
 Gospel to every creature/' never declared themselves as 
 giving up their worldly prospects to do so ; nor had 
 they any external call from the Pastors, congregation, or 
 ])eople, with the like view, and so they were not ordained 
 and separated : but simply from a strong desire to 
 contribute toward the salvation of souls, and fill up 
 the lack of other service, they proffered to serve the 
 cause of Christ, as they could, in their own immediate 
 neighbourhood. Grace they had, — and many of them, 
 in the primitive ranks, great grace, — and wisdom to win 
 souls ; but it was not the grace which is needful to 
 sustain the anxieties, trials, joys, and sorrows of the 
 ])astoral care, — the grace wliich is the concomitant of 
 the gift and of the call. In the wide Circuits of early 
 Methodism, and in Mr. Wesley's life-time, they were 
 entirely and singly under the guidance and oversight 
 of the Superintendent Minister, called the Assistant; 
 and not till some years after Mr. Wesley's death 
 had they separate meetings of their own. Thus the 
 impression in that day, on governing and intelligent 
 minds, was, that they were private Christians of more 
 than ordinary love and zeal, seeking to fill up the 
 intervals of their busy life with works of affectionate 
 duty, in behalf of Christ and the soids of men. And 
 nothing has occurred since that day to alter this posi- 
 tion, except that usage and recently-written rule have 
 acknowledged their right to sit in the Quarterly Meet- 
 ings of the Circuit, as well as in their own Quarterly 
 Meetings, and so exercise a subordinate share in the 
 economical ordering of the Society's affairs, in pro- 
 portion to their share in its subordinate teaching. 
 
224- LEADERS, &C. 
 
 In many places, and in different controversies, this 
 popular argument, in reference to such a band of 
 fellow-laboui'ers, has often found a good deal of sway ; 
 namely, that as this or that brother has been owned 
 of God in the conversion of souls, or in the introduc- 
 tion of the Gospel into some town or village where 
 the work has been proceeding ever since, he is there- 
 fore as much a Minister of Christ as any other. A 
 minister no doubt lie is, in tlie same sense in wliich 
 Priscilla, or Aquila, or Lydia, or a door-keeper, is a 
 minister ; but not in the sense of " Bishop, Teacher, 
 Pastor, or Elder," — the designations which are involved 
 in our use of the term. The men of Cyprus and 
 Cyrene preach to the Grecians at Antiocli, and num- 
 bers of them turn to the Lord ; but as soon as this 
 comes to the ears of the church at Jerusalem, Barna- 
 bas is sent to take charge of this work, and provide 
 for its conservation, which the Cyrenian behevers 
 could not do. And so, in times nearer our own, 
 "VYesleyan emigrants have carried the Gospel, by their 
 o^Mi free and homely teaching, into the back wilds of 
 America; but Messrs. Boardman and Pihnoor must 
 be sent forth by Mr. Wesley and his coadjutors to 
 oro:anize and administer the re^'ular ordinances of a 
 Clii'istian church. Mr. Baxter, of Her Majesty's 
 dockyard in Antigua, has compassion upon the black 
 and degraded population of that island, and takes 
 initial steps toward the formation of a rehgious 
 society ; but Dr. Coke is sent there by a special Pro- 
 vidence, to set on foot that great Missionary enter- 
 prise which since that day has entirely changed the 
 face of the West India Islands. If all who save 
 souls are Ministers, where shall we draw the line of 
 
A LINE SOMEWHERE. 225 
 
 distinction between them and other Clu'istians, or 
 how find a distinctive ministry at all ? 
 
 Do not pious mothers save more souls than any- 
 class of minor office-bearers whatever? Are not 
 zealous and sensible Sunday-school Teachers — and, 
 stiU more, are not intelligent and devoted Leaders of 
 classes in Methodism — as fruitful in contributing to 
 conversions, as brethren whose efPorts are confined to 
 the pulpit ? And have not single Christians been found, 
 of rare simphcity and love, who have borne no office, 
 and yet have accomphshed more visible good than any 
 one person who can be found in the positions just men- 
 tioned ? Yet are all these Ministers ? To say they are, 
 would be trifling with a word ; the flippancy all the 
 more revolting, fi'om the momentous nature of the sub- 
 ject. On this scheme, half the New Testament must 
 be a dead letter. A wild Montanist notion of the 
 work of the Holy Ghost, like that wliich is involved 
 in representing all fluent and ready speakers as 
 speaking through His unction, leads men in the 
 end to doubt, as the Montanists actually did before 
 their sect became extinct, whether there be any Holy 
 Ghost : for when the circle of profanity and vulgarity 
 is run through, and when the effects of such profane 
 vulgarity are sadly apparent in those forms of sin 
 against which the mere spirit of man, even in reli- 
 gious men, has no power, — and when the institutions 
 of Christianity, wliich guard and maintain the truth, 
 are treated with contempt, — this is the almost natural 
 conclusion to which people, apart from other influ- 
 ences, would come. When men of activity in 
 Christ^s church advance their claims, and draw nearer 
 and nearer to the ministerial position, then their grace 
 
226 PERIL OF FALSE AMBITION. 
 
 must increase^ or their peril increases : an attempt^ on 
 the part of the aspirant,, to draw the deference of the 
 people, which otherwise, and in a healthy state of 
 things, would be freely yielded to them, and to exer- 
 cise the implied functions of the office, without pos- 
 sessing the vocation and gifts of the Spirit, — among 
 which last humility is one of the best and brightest, — 
 is to endanger their relations with the Saviour : then 
 each one of them is a " novice, lifted up with pride,^^ 
 who has fallen " into the condemnation of the devil;" 
 and, as St. Paul teaches us, (1 Tim. iii. 6,) must not 
 be made a Bishop of the flock. Nor is this all ; for 
 the blindness and delusion of heart which belong to 
 this sin, often betray its subject, reft as he is of all 
 delicacy of spiritual feeling and perception, into open 
 wickedness and shame. No Christian communion can 
 furnish a more monitory history on this subject than 
 the Wesleyan ; and many of ourselves are aknost 
 chargeable with blood-guiltiness, for placing indivi- 
 duals in places of responsibiHty, and, consequently, of 
 danger, whose gifts and graces were utterly inadequate 
 to fill them. But for the present we must draw a 
 veil over the scene, — over a blighted, though once 
 hopeful, piety ; and over the awful farce of allowing 
 men to deal in sacred phrases, and become familiar 
 with sacred acts, only that, eventually, they may utter 
 the one, and mimic the other, in the wild strife of 
 political faction, or the scoffing cabals of liberal scep- 
 ticism. 
 
 And if we draw our monitions on this subject from 
 the Old Testament, we shall be sustained in such a 
 course by the authority of inspired writers in the 
 New. The judgment of Korali, Dathan, and Abiram, 
 
SCRIPTURE MONITION. 227 
 
 presents one great and leading monition. (Numb, xvi.) 
 I know it is usual for ecclesiastical levellers to skim 
 impatiently over tliis fact of history, and tlien lay it 
 by, saying, "0, all this, with its appendent lessons, 
 belongs to the Jewish theocracy and priesthood, and 
 looks no further." But the matter cannot be disposed 
 of thus. How is it that the Apostle Jude, in language 
 which seems to tremble with the weight of emotion it 
 expresses, — the varying emotion of awe, pity, and 
 terror, — describing prophetically the career, the guilt, 
 and the doom of false aspirants after the teaching 
 office, involving their ultimate removal from the 
 scene of sin and strife, says, " Woe unto them ! for 
 they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily 
 after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in 
 the gainsaying of Core ? " How ? unless there be a 
 true analogy between the cases. " The way of Cain " 
 is the way of intellectual pride and self-will: "the 
 error of Balaam " is the error of contriving for per- 
 sonal gain and popularity : " the gainsaying of Core " 
 is opposition to God's appointed institution, whether 
 it be that of a sacerdotal rule, as in ancient times, or 
 a teaching and heaven-sent ministry, as in modern : 
 and no one can have been a very close observer who 
 does not admit that the church-disturbers of all ac^es 
 have been mainly distinguished by these features. 
 
 Jude does not allude to the case of Korah and his 
 company to show that true Ministers of Christ are 
 Priests, but rather to show that the same God who 
 vindicated and defended his servants of the taberna- 
 cle in the discharge of their own peculiar responsibili- 
 ties, is still pledged to vindicate against all assailants, 
 and especially assailants in neighbouring positions, 
 Q ^ 
 
228 SCEIPTUHE MONITION. 
 
 the Stewards of His Gospel-houseliold in the main- 
 tenance and discharge of theirs. Can any other 
 conceivable sense be assigned to the allusion? and 
 very awfully has God^s providence verified it a thou- 
 sand times in His dealings with individuals. Tlie 
 whole scene is true to the hfe in all its details. Tirst 
 Korah, who is a Levite, and therefore an office-bearer, 
 makes common cause with Dathan and Abiram, 
 who are Eeubenites, and have no office, and induces 
 them to rise against the pastorship of Moses and 
 Aaron. Here is the temptation which belongs to a 
 place which is not the ministry and yet is only within 
 one step of it, involving the further temptation in the 
 hearts of those who hold that place to seek for help 
 from men of the commonalty by persuading them 
 that they, too, are sHghted and oppressed : so in the 
 Christian church, it is the holder of some trust, the 
 depositary of some gift, who, yielding, by little and 
 little, to an etherealised and long veiled ambition, 
 is at last resolved to tolerate no power beyond 
 his own. Like the sensual voluptuary, he cannot 
 take his cup but he must become drunken. Then 
 there is the plea set up by Korah, that " all the con- 
 gregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is 
 among tliem,'^ — a plea which modern philosophy, how- 
 ever it may repel other parts of the lesson, is not slow 
 to urge, by representing the whole Christian commu- 
 nity as the subject of one common religious conscious- 
 ness, and, by consequence, all its members as claimants 
 of a common and equal right to govern ; as though 
 the Holy Ghost could not be in all as the Illuminator 
 and Eegenerator, and yet, at the same time, specially 
 in some as the source of ministerial grace and \mc- 
 
SCRTPTTJEE MONITION. 229 
 
 tion ; as tliougli God could not be with all the house- 
 hold as its Head, and yet specially with its Stewards, 
 as their Prompter, Stay, and Guide, in order that He 
 might be their Judge ; as though the primal authority 
 could not with equal righteousness set bounds to an 
 individual office, and to the providential pathway of a 
 wanderer tlirough the world. And if we think of the 
 judgment wliich followed in connexion with the 
 Apostle Jude^s prophetic comment and woe, we have 
 before us the representation of a constant dispensation 
 of God's government on earth, by which those who 
 labour tlirough pride to subvert His order, are them- 
 selves subverted, removed, and, as to usefulness and 
 office, swallowed up, in this present evil world. And 
 lastly there was the murmur that rose on the follow- 
 ing morning, that these heads of Israel, Moses and 
 Aaron, had killed the people of the Lord ; illustrating 
 the manner in which a popular ferment and passion 
 can lead to the most blind and reckless conclusions, 
 to the utter misconceiving of a righteous, though 
 serious, act of discipline. 
 
 The whole Epistle of Jude is one of the most awful 
 documents of Holy Scripture in reference to those 
 who insinuate themselves into the teaching office and 
 function for ambitious and personal ends ; for this is 
 tlie one subject of the communication. No Epistle 
 carries stronger internal evidence of a powerful and 
 plenary inspiration. It is not the strain of one who 
 writes from his own natural and elevated conscious- 
 ness, prompted by which he adventures upon a great 
 breadth of amplification. It is rather a brief and 
 starthng message, which closes when the authorising 
 utterance is withdrawTi. 
 
230 SCRIPTURE MONITION. 
 
 It is our only authority for the primseval state of 
 the fallen angels, and for the fact of an unpub- 
 lished prophecy of Enoch, and for the contention of 
 Michael with Satan ; and therefore we are justified in 
 attributing the imagery of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 verses to the Holy Spirits direct suggestion. Wicked 
 adventurers are here "spots in your peasts of 
 CHARITY;'^ that is, spots of darkness in a circle of 
 sacred light: "clouds without water /' fleecy and 
 gaily -fringed to the sight, but pouring no refreshing 
 rain, mocking the expectation of the husbandman : 
 " CARRIED about OF WINDS ;" that is, ready to move 
 with any current of opinion, no matter from what 
 quarter it may proceed, or whither it may tend : 
 "trees whose fruit withereth/^ that is, if there 
 be in their case the utterance of truth, it is powerless, 
 pointless, and leaves no result : " twice dead '" dead 
 once as all men are in original sin, and now dead by 
 departure from the source of life: "plucked up by the 
 roots ;" no longer drawing strength from regeneration 
 and union with Christ : " raging waves op the sea, 
 FOAMING out THEIR OWN SHAME ;" that is, ready for 
 the wild whirl of agitation ; tumultuous, restless, reck- 
 less, and scattering their own shivered influence to 
 injure, where it has lost its power to save : " wander- 
 ing STARS, TO WHOM IS RESERVED THE BLACKNESS OF 
 
 darkness for ever •" being all the more objects of 
 terror, as they once had an orbit, and moved in beauty 
 around a central sun. 
 
 that the minds of generous youth now rising 
 among us, youth that know not yet, however, their 
 own hearts, and are naturally impatient of learning 
 the lessons of the past, would hearken to and be 
 
SCRIPTURE MONITION. 231 
 
 warned by this testimony ! To fall into perdition 
 from any point is a fearful issue; but to fall from 
 the courts of the Lord's house is a startling and 
 inconceivable ruin. 
 
 I would rather linger with loving memory over the 
 names of many Local Preachers, who occupy our early 
 obituaries, and over those of honourable and holy 
 women and their associates, and a company in hum- 
 bler sphere, beyond my power to enumerate, who, as 
 Leaders of Classes, have strengthened our hands in 
 the Lord, than show how others have been snared 
 and taken in the toils of the great deceiver. Many 
 existing Leaders and Local Preachers are among our 
 dearest friends, and among the noblest and best of 
 human beings. But these pages cannot afford space 
 for the luxury of sustained contemplation. The claim 
 of the aspirant is suicidal. Wliat lay Preacher of 
 sound and sober understanding is there, who, when 
 confronted by the bigotry of exclusive systems, — a 
 bigotry which asks him, ^^By what authority doest 
 thou these tilings V does not feel it an advantage to 
 refer, not only to his own conscience, which, of 
 course, might be subject to a thousand vagaries, but 
 to the sanction of a regular Christian communion, 
 and to the guidance of its pastorate, for his authority ? 
 Methodism has not erred, we think, in accepting, 
 even to a greater extent than any other church, the 
 labours of pious laymen and spiritually-minded females; 
 for the Apostles were not slow to do this : but it may 
 have erred in allowing an interpretation of these exer- 
 cises to grow up, which has tended, in no small 
 degree, to confound the ordinances of Christ with 
 tliose allowable institutions of man, which are so 
 
232 LOWEE, SENSE OF THE WOED " OFFICE/' 
 
 clearly clistinguislied in the New Testament ; and its 
 dangers, agitations, and troubles liave mainly arisen 
 from this circumstance. Bishops or Elders, and 
 Deacons, as we have seen, are the only ecclesiastical 
 persons mentioned in Scripture, — the only persons 
 who hold office, in the just sense of that term. Any 
 other allotment of stated labour is the creation of an 
 office in another and a lower sense, — an office so to 
 speak : one, no doubt, which Christ will own and 
 bless, according to the spirit and temper in which its 
 duties are fulfilled ; yet only so long as it harmonises 
 with the entire Christian institution, its catholic claims 
 and obligations. Notliing distresses me more than 
 that the controversies of the age drive me to the 
 seeming course, though it is no more than seeming, 
 of undervaluing a class of fellow-labourers who are 
 always regarded, as long as they are pledged to us in 
 sympathy, and in the pursuance of a common object, 
 with feehngs of respect and love. But the -wdsest 
 and best among them will be the first to subscribe to 
 the sentiments which are here expressed. In the 
 foreign fields of Christian enterprise there are thou- 
 sands of such fellow-labourers, many of them greatly 
 owned of God ; but there are very few among those 
 thousands who deem otherwise than that they are as 
 much bound to defer to the guidance, and acquiesce 
 in the discipline, of the Missionary Pastor, as any 
 other member of the flock. Events sometimes speak 
 more loudly tlian theories : and such events are noted 
 in a recent communication^ from a worthy Mis- 
 sionary in Australia ; who states, that in the excite- 
 
 * "Missionary Notices," August, 1852, p. 113. Letter dated, 
 "Melbourne, Victoria, January 21st, 1852." 
 
UNIVERSAL ANALOGIES. 233 
 
 meiit consequent on the discovery of gold in the 
 colony, more than half the Local Preachers left the 
 Circuit, in order, if possil:)le, to enrich themselves 
 by digging for the precious metal. Now, no one 
 could positively say that these brethren erred in leav- 
 ing the Missionary Pastor to stay with the town popu- 
 lation, and going themselves into the wilderness to 
 better their commercial and social condition : indeed, 
 it might be a providential opening, which, for the 
 sake of their families, they were right in following ; 
 for ordinary commerce is only another form of digging 
 for gold. But what becomes of their conduct on the 
 theory that they, too, were Ministers and Pastors? 
 Might not the Superintendent in such case have said, 
 " Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present 
 world?" (2Tim. iv. 10.) 
 
 Xow, all the above principles are in harmony with the 
 moral laws of the universe and of society, in which the 
 fixed and the free combine with, and work into, each 
 other. Some men must do certain things at all events 
 and all hazards ; others may do them occasionally with 
 great propriety and advantage, but not under the force 
 of obligation. The Judge on the bench must explain 
 the law with directive authority, and must give judicial 
 decisions in the cases brought before him ; and yet the 
 judgments of wise and able, though non-forensic, men, 
 when brought to bear on the same matters, may often 
 be equally in harmony with the statute-book, and be 
 beneficially received and acted on as such. There 
 are trade-winds and tides on the ocean, which are 
 uniformly calculated on as aiding the voyager over its 
 surfiice; but the varied stray breezes of the atmo- 
 sphere, and the apparently abnormal currents of the 
 
234 UNIVERSAL ANALOGIES. 
 
 deep, all yield their advantage iu one sum total, 
 when loss and gain have been balanced; and the 
 provision for good is found on the whole to be one 
 great unity. 
 
 So, in the sphere of unofficial and, in some sense, 
 irresponsible action, must gifts and power be deve- 
 loped, to supply a void, and to ascertain a vocation ; 
 and tliis before the burden of responsibility is imposed. 
 The Greek youth must freely use his limbs in nature's 
 own gymnasium., before his father will consider whe- 
 ther it were well to send him to the arena, to con- 
 tend in the presence of many witnesses for a crown. 
 Origen, of old time, and a host of licentiates in 
 modern communions, — Wesleyan Local Preachers 
 among the rest, — are permitted to preach the word, 
 in order to test their spiritual temper and fidelity ; and 
 then, when a vocation manifestly appears, to acknow- 
 ledge it and obey, by inviting the unobtrusive guest 
 at the wedding-feast to go up higher. 
 
 And for the consolation of all who engage in free 
 tasks for Christ's sake, it must be asserted, nor can 
 the doctrine be too often repeated, that it is not office, 
 but the heart's own simple love, which gives to 
 actions their dignity in God's sight. The absence 
 of ordination need not involve the want of sanctifi- 
 cation, as far as the deed extends. A soul is none 
 the less saved because the principal instrument of 
 that salvation did not occupy the place of a recog- 
 nised Pastor ; neither is the Pastorate of less value, 
 because of its nurturing efficient fellow-helpers among 
 the laity. " Holiness unto the Lord" is to be written 
 upon the bells of the horses ; therefore upon prayer, 
 upon precept, upon hymn, upon exhortation. 
 
APPENDIX. 235 
 
 ■ Unto each its hue is given, 
 A'aricd as those stones of heaven : 
 Love, which, like an angel's sight, 
 Sees aU things divinely bright ; 
 And each duty fills with rays 
 Fairer than the chrysoprase." 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note (A), page 220. 
 
 " And so within, and towards each other, all Christians are hound, 
 to the extent of their capacity, and the opportunities which God has 
 given them, to be Teachers likewise ; and no one is without that 
 appropriate and personal sphere in which, without derogating from 
 other authority, the effectual knowledge of the Gospel, and the salva- 
 tion of souls committed to his charge, is made dependent upon him. 
 And thus, as God's natural atti'ibutes are reflected, not only in the 
 mighty whole of the creation, but in each individual particle ; so the 
 image of Christ and His offices, so far as they are communicable, is 
 reflected in each ultimate atom of which the organic whole is con- 
 structed, and the collective church is multiplied in each individual. 
 Still, eminently, and with special power, by virtue of their office, and 
 unction of the Spirit, are the Ministers of the chui-ch of Christ 
 Teachers ; and upon the due discharge of this portion of their trust 
 mainly depends the salvation of the souls of which the Holy Ghost 
 has made them overseers. No step or motion God-ward, no mutual 
 or individual celebration of prayer and thanksgiving, no participation 
 of holy ordinances, is even possible without a previous intelligence, 
 and that teaching of the ways of God in the Gospel, which cannot be 
 separated from a rational and understanding faith ; no, not, in its 
 degree, eveti as to the child, in whose behalf, before it has faith and 
 repentance for itself, the faith and repentance of others is required by 
 the church. And then there are those solemn accessories of effectual 
 teaching, — the rebuke, the constant calling to mind, the building up 
 the structure of Christian wisdom upon the first foundation ; and the 
 leading, by spiritual comparison, into those profoundcr meanings, and 
 the application of those great truths, which are contained in the 
 dcjjths of revelation ; to the comprehension of which, iutellect and 
 
236 APPENDIX. 
 
 holiness, illuminated by the Spirit, and indissolubly combined in their 
 operations into one mighty faculty, without a name in the world's 
 language, are indispensable to the soul. AU this involves a vast 
 responsibility: it demands a clear discrimination and statement of 
 great principles, and a constant and accm-ate comprehension of the 
 laws of man's spiritual and moral nature relatively to the Gospel ; 
 laws which ought to be placed beyond the reach of any personal 
 peculiarities to colour them, or the suspicion of limited views to mis- 
 represent them. It requires a commanding truthfulness of statement, 
 which every heart should acknowledge, and a ready reference to an 
 unquestionable authority, to make possible the discharge of so solemn 
 and onerous a duty." — Garbett's "Bampton Lectures," vol. ii., 
 Lect. v., pp. 34, 35. 1842. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ox THE CONXEXIOXAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 " If wc walk in the light, we have fellowship one with another." — 
 St. John. 
 
 § I. Vi'E now approacli tlie point controverted 
 between Congregationalists and nearly all other pro- 
 fessing persons, as to whether the Christian society 
 meeting in one place, however small its number, has 
 a scriptural right of absolute self-control, to the repul- 
 sion of any authority from Avithout ; or whether it is 
 so placed, that, in order to fulfil all the purposes of 
 the Gospel, it must needs enter into connexion with 
 other churches, — a connexion of such a kind as to 
 enable the several societies to render each other mutual 
 aid, and subject themselves to a common order; pro- 
 viding, at the same time, as such an arrangement 
 must do, for the testing, appointment, and disciphne 
 of ]\linisters by persons of their own order. The 
 oiKoEofiT], "building-up," of the body of Christ is 
 greatly concerned in the resolution of this matter. 
 
 Here, however, a previous question occurs, — the 
 question as to how this congregation was originated ; 
 by whom, humanly speaking, it was made Christian. 
 It may consist of persons who were lately sunk ip 
 miser}^ and sin, but were awakened, and led to con- 
 version, by one or more other persons in regular 
 Christian society, with whom they had no previous 
 
238 ORIGINATION. 
 
 tie. These new converts might be still ignorant^ and 
 need nurturing; oppressed with poverty, too, while 
 their spiritual benefactors were both wise and willing 
 to render them pecuniary aid. Does not every prin- 
 ciple in Cln-istianity tend to the linking of these new- 
 found disciples to those who found them, — the con- 
 verter to the convert, and vice versa ? And if they 
 must needs continue a distinct Society, must not the 
 little congregation, as such, look to the parent commu- 
 nity for both support and guidance ? that is, to obtain 
 its Pastor, and the means, in whole or part, of his 
 subsistence, and the rules of Christian order for the 
 guidance of its individual members ? 
 
 § II. Again : before we come to positive evidence, 
 it appears to me that there are antecedent presump- 
 tions existing under the surface of both Old and New- 
 Testament teaching, far more in favour, than other- 
 wise, of the notion, that the main sections of the 
 Christian church should take the connexional, rather 
 than the several and independent, form. There was 
 no absolute independency of the single congregation 
 under the former dispensations of the covenant of 
 grace ; and the glory of the latter is never said, in the 
 least degree, to consist in any alteration which affects 
 this particular; inasmuch as the Hberty which pre- 
 vails where the Spirit of the Lord is, (2 Cor. iii. 17,) 
 is freedom of direct access to God tlnrough Christ, 
 without the intervention and obscuration of a sacer- 
 dotal ritualism. 
 
 The Shemitic families were, more or less, under 
 the control and oversight of their patriarchs : the 
 Israelites had their respective tribes and families, and, 
 in later days, their sjTiagogues, compacted and regu- 
 
ANTECEDENT PRESUMPTIONS. 239 
 
 lated by their Syiiedriiun : and thougli Protestant 
 Christians know no Head, no Shepherd, or Bishop of 
 souls over them all, but the Saviour in heaven, yet 
 there is notliing in the free and noble spirit of the 
 Gospel to prevent single assemblies of them from 
 being mutually subject, under a common and accepted 
 authority, when the greater extension of His king- 
 dom is the common object. The most strenuous 
 supporters of a democratic theory in human politics 
 will themselves yield to a council of war, or even 
 to the word of a commander, where unity, at all 
 events, must be secured, or a victory won. And as it 
 is better, on the whole, to risk the possible chance of 
 errors and mistakes in that authority, and even the 
 extreme possibility of being obliged to remove from 
 luider it, and seek another, rather than lie still in 
 fragments to be ruined, and dispersed by the enemy 
 in detail ; so there is no reason why men, whose defi- 
 nition of Christian freedom is willingness and liberty 
 to serve Clirist, should lower themselves, mar the 
 dignity, or miss the end, of their being, by not bring- 
 ing out the highest aggregate wisdom of their distinct 
 Societies, and uniting it into a guiding authority for 
 the whole; thereby aiming to serve Christ more 
 effectually, — making a firmer stand against sin, and a 
 l)oldcr aggression upon the world. There is nothing 
 ill the tone of apostolical precept which forbids this : 
 the principle of it — ^that is, of mutual submission — is 
 rather affirmed, again and again. If conventional sub- 
 mission is to be absolutely repudiated, then univer- 
 sities, schools, families, must all dissolve the bonds 
 by which they are held together, and the world be 
 plunged into a miserable fight of adverse atoms. 
 
240 ANTECEDENT PRESUMPTIONS. 
 
 Where some cliurclies are weak and otliers strong, 
 it is to be presumed, surely, on all common principles 
 of the Gospel, that they are intended to help each 
 other; for this is only an expanded application of 
 the principle in Gal. vi. 2, where bearing each other^s 
 burdens is expressly said to be a fulfihnent of the law 
 OF Cheist : and out of this arrangement will neces- 
 sarily grow some form of economical control, so far 
 as mere human economy is concerned ; for those who 
 afford help have some right to determine the con- 
 ditions on which it shall be given ; and those who are 
 aided cannot call the exercise of this right an infringe- 
 ment of their liberty; — provided always, and indis- 
 pensably, that they are consenting parties to the 
 compact; for Christianity knows nothing, in its 
 ecclesiastics, of coercion. 
 
 § III. The commission, too, which our Lord gave 
 to His Apostles, to ^^go into all the world, and preach 
 the Gospel to every creature,^' with the promise, that 
 He would be with them always, even unto the end of 
 the world, seems to be uttered prospectively of the 
 establishment of a connecting link, by which Ministers, 
 in their several territories, should be united in a tan- 
 gible and formal, as well as sympathetic, fellowship, 
 from age to age. Indeed, it seems impossible to 
 explain the text on any other supposition : for, sup- 
 posing a single congregation at Corinth or Ephesus, 
 at the close of the first century, to be in a distracted 
 *and sinful condition, and the Apostles, Evangelists, and 
 the first Pastors appointed by them to be all dead, — ■ 
 what person, in such a case, shall claim that special 
 blessing and presence of Christ, promised under the 
 covenant engagement, in order to carry out the design 
 
ANTECEDENT PRESUMPTIONS. 241 
 
 nnd purpose of tlie Christian ministry, as regards tins 
 congregation? By whom shall he be tested, desig- 
 nated, appointed? By those who know nothing of 
 the heart of a Pastor, and who need to be themselves 
 directed into the truth ? Must the sinful appoint the 
 teacher and exemplar of holiness? Or must there 
 not be found a wisdom somewhere away from the 
 circle of strife and of exigency, inhering in the col- 
 lective pastorate of the same church, or, if there is 
 none, in the pastorate of some other which may lay 
 claim to Clirisfs promise and aid, — a wisdom and 
 authority to meet this case of necessity, and bring the 
 congregation to liarmony with themselves and the 
 laws of the great Head? or, if this attempt fail, 
 then to draw the faithful from among them? The 
 case, prinid facie, is, that the servants of the Saviour 
 are so bound together in responsibility, — so mutually 
 interested in His work, and pervading the world 
 with His Gospel. There is a strong presumption, 
 that economical and formal arrangements of church 
 connexion were intended, wdiich should produce and 
 sustain this very state of things. 
 
 § lY. And then, again ; to explain a hint already 
 given : there are distinct intimations in Scripture that 
 discipline must be exercised upon Ministers, over those 
 who aspire to the ministry, and on " vain talkers and 
 deceivers:" ^' Their mouths,'^ said St. Paul, ''must 
 be stopped." But when these vain talkers have 
 spoken perverse things, and drawn away disciples 
 after them, without retiring from the church, who 
 is able to stop their mouths but the Ministers, into 
 the compact of whose fellow^ship they came ? And 
 if a whole congregation is corrupted by them, how 
 
 R 
 
212 ANTECEDENT PEESUMFriONS. 
 
 can their defection and sin be marked,, and them- 
 selves discovered^ except by a conventional authority 
 of aggregate churches^ and a standard of doctrine? 
 Without some such arrangement^ — seeing there are 
 now no supernaturally endowed Evangelists, — this 
 precept, and several similar, must remain unfulfilled. 
 The Apostles could not formally set up this con- 
 nexion, or describe its detail and order ; for this 
 would have prematurely increased the jealousy and 
 rage of the Gentile powers ; just as the formal de- 
 claration of a change of day in observing the Sabbath 
 rest would inevitably have drawn on, at first, an ex- 
 terminating persecution of the Jews. And the Jews 
 would, probably, deem that they had less need to do 
 this, inasmuch as they all had been trained under a 
 rehgious connexion of their own nation; for their 
 synagogues, excepting in such distant places as Baby- 
 lon and Persia, were subject to a central Sanhedrim 
 in all those minor matters in which individual loyalty 
 to Jehovah was not interfered with. And therefore, 
 unless there were something in the spirit and precepts 
 of the Gospel incompatible with the union of the 
 churches, (coercive and laic rule was incompatible,) 
 it seems far most natural that their arrangements for 
 government, in various parts of the world, should be 
 intentionally anticipative of such formal union in each 
 distinct nation, or province, or tribe; and that the 
 churches should glide out of the synagogal into the 
 more spiritual form which Christianity requires, — 
 retaining, however, the well-accustomed nexus, and 
 exchanging the Sanhedrim for the Synod. 
 
 § V. And now, in bringing forth the positive evi- 
 dence of Scriptui'e on this subject, our purpose is to 
 
INITIAL PRINCIPLE. 243 
 
 show, not tliat the primitive churches, so early as the 
 Apostles' days, actually existed iu estabhshed con- 
 nexions, like those of the Church of England, the 
 Church of Scotland, and our own communion : — this 
 would be contrary to fact ; for, in the course of forty 
 or fifty years, oft distracted by Judaism and torn by 
 persecution, they could only then make gradual 
 approaches to settled form : — ^but that, under the 
 sanction of the Apostles, which was the sanction of 
 Clirist, the initial principle of church connexion, 
 involving central administration, was affirmed; leav- 
 ing it to be apphed in after-ages, as exigency might 
 demand, or wisdom dictate. The primitive congre- 
 gations were first independent of, and separate from, 
 each other, saving their common subjection to apo- 
 stolic and evangelistic control; but if we shall see 
 that in any of these there was an internal union of 
 smaller societies in the great congregation, a prin- 
 ciple was recognised, which only needed to be ex- 
 panded, not developed, in order to the consociation 
 of the churches themselves. 
 
 § YI. The first approach to this state of things lay 
 in tlie appointment of a plurality of Elders to each 
 church; because notliing is more natural and usual than 
 to find, that where a number of persons are appointed 
 to do an aggregate work, they divide their labours, 
 in order to the more perfect accomplislunent of the 
 object of them. So, then, a number of Christian 
 Elders, labouring at Jerusalem, amongst a given 
 people, or what is called one church, would certainly 
 not speak and teach at the same hour in the same 
 place, unless we suppose the greatest confusion to 
 have prevailed : nor would they take their places by 
 R % 
 
244 PLUHALITY OF ELDEES. 
 
 succession^ and remain idle in tlie intervals of duty ; 
 for they had no rich estabhshed resources, like 
 the Jews, to sustain so expensive a course : they 
 would rather have allotted to them minor, though 
 varying, divisions of the people, to whom they were 
 to give adequate and specific instruction. Now, 
 however we might dwell upon the import of the 
 term ^''church" as signifjdng one assembly or con- 
 gregation, here is the tendency, in its own bosom, 
 to a natural and healthful subdivision, and that, too, 
 in proportion to its own prosperity; and this sub- 
 division takes place under the rule of one presbytery. 
 To deny that a plurahty of Elders was generally, if 
 not universally, found in the early churches, would 
 be reckless. Thus, at Jerusalem, we read of the 
 Apostles and Elders : (Acts xv. 4 :) Paul and Bar- 
 nabas, in Asia Minor, ordained them Elders in every 
 church : (Acts xiv. 23 :) from Miletus Paul sent to 
 Ephesus, and called the Elders of the church : (Acts 
 XX. 17 :) his address to the church at Philippi is spe- 
 cifically directed "to the saints which are in Christ 
 Jesus, with the Bishops " (or Elders) " and Deacons :" 
 (Phil. i. 1 :) Titus was left in Crete, that he might 
 " set in order the things that were wanting, and ordain 
 Elders in every city : " (Titus i. 5 :) and as the 
 Epistles were written to be read, in the first instance, 
 in given churches, they were framed in accordance 
 with the state of things then existing in those 
 chm'ches : so that Peter, in saying, " The Elders 
 which are among you I exhort, who am also an 
 Elder," (1 Peter v. 1,) must be understood to exhort 
 a unity of several Elders, in each distinct community 
 in which his General Epistle had been introduced. 
 
PLURALITY OF ELDERS. 245 
 
 I cannot find a single instance in Scripture in which 
 the care of a congregation of believers is confided to 
 one man : everywhere there is a fellowship of Minis- 
 ters, in order to an adequate oversight of the people. 
 It is urged bj Dr. Wardlaw, that the number of 
 Elders is of no consequence, provided the work be 
 done : but tliis is, surely, the chief point in question. 
 Have we any right to differ from a universal institute 
 of the Apostles, and conclude, from a standard of our 
 own adoption, that by one man, however wise or 
 gifted, the work, all the work which the Gospel 
 requires, really u done ? May it be absolutely con- 
 cluded that he can meet all the spiritual wants and 
 tastes of those committed to his charge ? If even 
 Paul needed the associated labour of ApoUos and 
 Cephas at Corinth, — supplementing his planting with 
 their watering, — may modern Pastors plead an 
 avTcipKeui in this matter ? Are not these three 
 men the t}^es of different kinds of ministration 
 requisite for the edification and salvation of all con- 
 gregations? How awful a thing is an individual 
 responsibility in such a case ! I know Ministers 
 who could not have borne up under the weight of 
 such a charge, liad they not been sustained by the 
 co-partnership in toil and counsel mth them of men 
 whom they deemed better than themselves. 
 
 § YII. The next indication of apostolic sanction, in 
 respect of the connexional tendency, lies in the willing 
 subordination, which we find, of the body of Elders 
 in a church, to one of their own number, as their 
 head or chief administrator. AYe find it in the 
 charge given to the seven churches of Asia. The 
 chm-ch of Ephesns is first selected for admonition ; 
 
216 SUBORDINATION TO A HEAD. 
 
 but the charge is not addressed to the Elders of that 
 church, but to the Angel, — one who appears invested 
 with the chief responsibility. Now, the last thing 
 which we hear of this church is when Paul left it, 
 or, rather, its adjacent port Miletus, according to 
 the received chronology, in a.d. 60 : at that time 
 it was governed by Elders ; for none but Elders are 
 mentioned, and none but Elders and Deacons are 
 named in the Epistle which Paul addressed to them. 
 But now between thirty and forty years have rolled 
 away, leaving many changes on the scene, and, pro- 
 bably, some increase of the church : and during this 
 time, and in the early portion of it, Timothy was 
 sent by Paul, as the Apostle himself declares in his 
 Eirst Epistle to Timothy, (i. 3,) to administer in 
 chief, though in connexion with these Elders, the 
 discipline of that church ; especially as it bore on the 
 Teachers themselves ; some of whom, it seems, had 
 begun to fulfil the Apostle's prediction, uttered at his 
 parting ; at least, so far as to " give heed to fables 
 and endless genealogies, which minister questions, 
 rather than godly edifying, which is in faith." In 
 this way was the church introduced, pro temporey 
 into the regimen of being governed by a presb}i;ery 
 with a chief at its head ; and because of the healthful 
 results of this kind of order, it is evidently main- 
 tained to the day of John's vision of the glori- 
 fied Saviour. And our Lord, by addressing the 
 Angel in his individual position, must be held to 
 sanction the principle of administering by one 
 jprimtiSj whether he be called Angel, Bishop, Presi- 
 dent, or what else, collective p^esbyterial responsi- 
 bilities; and all the more, as errors in the presbytery 
 
SUBORDINATION TO A HEAD. 247 
 
 itself needed to be corrected. For the Angel here is 
 commended for not bearing ^' them which are evil/' 
 for trying them "which say they are Apostles^ and 
 are not/' for having been exemplary in patience and 
 in toil ; even as the Angel of the church at Thyatira 
 is reproved for neglecting discipline in the case of the 
 Moman Jezebel. 
 
 That authority of the Holy Ghost, mentioned in 
 Acts XX., by which the Elders are made overseers of 
 the flock, cannot be deemed to be here annulled ; for 
 Elders form a standing institute. (Eph. iv. 11.) And 
 yet John, who was in the Spirit, — that is, under the 
 influence of the same Spirit, — received a command to 
 write to the Angel, and communicate a message from 
 the Head of the church, — a message which affected 
 both Ministers and members. Thus it was with the 
 church at Ephesus ; and from this instance it is easy 
 to believe tliat similar processes had been at work in 
 all the congregations of Proconsular Asia, leading to 
 similar results. And, on comparing the whole of the 
 sacred charge with the statements of the Acts of the 
 Apostles, no inference from it appears clearer and 
 more direct than this, — that while Elders are still left, 
 with their office and responsibilities, for the edifica- 
 tion of the flock, untouched, yet, according to 
 the will of Christ, one of their number — one of the 
 wisest and best — administers His law, even as it 
 respects and directs them."^ 
 
 * Kinfrbam quotes Tertullian as referring the origination of the 
 ofllce of Bishop distinctively to the time of St. John : " Ordo tamen 
 Episcoporum, ad origiiiem receiuus, in Joannem stuhit auctorem ;" 
 (Ado. Marcion., lib. iv. ;) and though our antiquary freely renders it, 
 by putting the last word in the plui-al, " The order of Bishops, when 
 
248 ANGELS OP THE SEVEN CHUHCHES. 
 
 § YIII. To this view there have been some objec- 
 tions offered^ which it may be well briefly to notice. 
 It has been objected, that as the term (1776X09 signi- 
 fies a messenger, so this person in the Apocalypse 
 may be no other than a representative of the people, 
 chosen by themselves, to make, and receive, communi- 
 cations on their behalf; especially as Titus, Luke, and 
 another brother, who were sent by the Corinthian 
 church to convey their benefactions to Jerusalem, were 
 called airoa-Tokot eKK\7}aL0}v, "apostles,^' or "dele- 
 gates, of the churches ; " and Epaphroditus, in Phil. ii. 
 25, the " delegate^^ of the Philippians. This, however, 
 is utterly inconsistent with the pastoral responsibility 
 ascribed to him. So far from being an air6(TroXo<i, 
 in the sense of " delegate or popular representative,^^ he 
 is a trier of those who profess to be airoaTokoi in 
 any sense, and a hater of the deeds of the Nicolai- 
 tanes : and he is, moreover, blamed for having leffc 
 his first love; which love, ruling originally in his 
 bosom with supreme sway, was, perhaps, the cause of 
 liis elevation, — all inconsistent with the notion of 
 a church- delegate. And as to the assertion that, 
 at least, a<y^eko^ signifies " messenger," there is no 
 honest way of interpreting the passage, if the idea of 
 a personal angel must stand at all, but that of regard- 
 ing him as the messenger, or angel, of Clirist to the 
 
 it is traced tip to its original, will be found to Lave St. John far one 
 of its authors," so as to bring Professor Campbell's byjiercriticism 
 upon him ; yet, obscure as this Father is, that criticism does not shake 
 the main testimony of the passage, however literally it might be ren- 
 dered. Before St. John, there were no pasiores pastonan in churches, 
 save the Apostles and Evangelists : after him, noue were ever wanting. 
 
ANGELS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 249 
 
 clmrcli ; especially when it is considered that the seven 
 stars, wliich represent the angels, are held in Christ's 
 right hand, by Him authorised, and at His disposal. 
 AYliose messengers can they be, placed as they are in 
 churches, none of which is before us in an active, or 
 expansive, or altogether approved condition? Some 
 are lethargic and worldly. The angels have no voice 
 to utter as from the communities, — for some of these 
 last are not in a condition, or temper, to say any- 
 thing, — but are placed rather to testify for Christ, 
 by designation of the Apostles, or EvangeHsts, 
 who themselves were guided by the Spirit's own 
 Hand : and the whole business of the charge is, that 
 of the Spirit of Christ informing the messengers of 
 Christ ; and in that ^vay, and through them, warning 
 and instructing the different communities ; inasmuch 
 as each distinct charge is concluded with this formula : 
 " He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the 
 Spirit saith unto the chui'ches.'" Even the angels 
 of heaven, who, according to our Saviour's declara- 
 tion, minister to children, (Matt, xviii. 10,) are said to 
 be t/ieir — the children's or disciples' — angels, though 
 they are, unquestionably, angels sent, or appointed, by 
 God. And, therefore, the presiding Ministers of 
 these Cln-istian societies are, with like idioms, called 
 " angels of the churches," while Christ Himself is 
 their Author, Sovereign, and Sender. 
 
 It has been further urged, that, as the book of 
 Revelation is confessedly figurative in its teaching, so 
 the term "angel" may be figurative of the genius 
 and spirit of the different communions mentioned. 
 But to this it must be replied, that, whatever emble- 
 matical character belongs to some of the appearances 
 
250 ANGELS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 appended to our Lord^s person in the vision, there 
 are no indications of allegory, or sustained figure, in 
 the charge itself. Nothing here is more fraught 
 with allusion than is cjuite common to the Hebrseo- 
 prophetic style, which is the style adopted through 
 the whole book. Besides, the emblems them- 
 selves, where they occur in this portion of it, are 
 explained. The very authority which declares the 
 seven stars to be fJbvaTrjpiov, " a mysterj^,^^ — ^that is, 
 a truth hid under a figurative representation, — ^like- 
 \\dse declares that the seven stars are, that is, they 
 represent, the angels of the Seven Churches : so that 
 the angels, instead of being symbols, or compound 
 emblems, are themselves the objects symbolised. 
 If the Author of revelation gives the key to the right 
 understanding of His revelation, all controversy on 
 the subject is at an end. Moreover, the stars repre- 
 sent one thing ; the candlesticks, another, — the 
 churches : and the Ephesian angel is warned to do 
 his first works, lest his candlestick should be moved 
 out of his place; which, on the theory above-mentioned, 
 would have the effect of teaching that the church itself 
 should be taken away from the spirit of the church, — 
 a manifest absurdity. If the whole range of prophecy, 
 both in the Old Testament and New, be explored, 
 taking all instances, from Joseph's dream down to the 
 present, stars are found to represent heads or rulers of 
 communities, — civil, ecclesiastical, or both. In the 
 book of Eevelation they are the uniform symbol; 
 and, surely, every one who seeks the true meaning 
 of Scripture, would abide by a rule of interpretation 
 which can be applied universally. 
 
 We can understand how, if the pastorate became 
 
AXGELS OF THE SEVEN CHUECHES. 251 
 
 unfiiithful, the decline and ruin of the church sliould 
 follow; and we have seen this prediction fulfilled. 
 Those writers who have regarded, as the late Dr. R. 
 W. Hamilton, in his Sermon on the Inter-communion 
 of Churches, the use of the term " angel " as a perso- 
 nification of an organized Christian society, must not 
 only have overlooked the insuperable difficulties just 
 referred to, but have failed to observe the entire rj6o^, 
 and tone of allusion, in the whole address. The 
 imagery is all Hebraic, — taken from the Old Testa- 
 ment sanctuary and theocracy. Thus here : the Smyr- 
 ncan Angel knows " the blasphemy of those who say 
 they are Jews, and are not, but are of the synagogue 
 of Satan : '' in the church at Pergamos there are those 
 denounced who "hold the doctrine of Balaam, w^ho 
 taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the 
 children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, 
 and to commit fornication : the spiritual conqueror 
 is promised that he shall " eat of the hidden manna -,'' 
 that he shall have, as Priest unto God and His Christ, 
 the -^(^iov XevKrjVj^ " the bright (Urim) stone,^^ with 
 
 * It seems remarkable that so many expositors sliould in this pas- 
 sage have understood either the white voting stone, the token of 
 acquittal used in Greek courts of justice, or the tessera hospitalis 
 used in many of the cities : for X^vKhs stands as well to represent a 
 bright silvery effulgence, as it does the whiteness of linen or of snow. 
 The whole imagery in this sense seems sacerdotal ; and the intensely 
 lumiuous rays proceeding from the sacred stone, set in the High 
 Priest's breastplate, form the most natural object of allusion. To this 
 view we are recalled by the Syriac version of the passage, where 
 chnshhono cheworo, as Dr. Etheridge (see his " Apostolic Acts 
 and Epistles, translated," &c., 1849) thinks, may suggest the very 
 notion of a shining breast-plate. The exposition thus suggested 
 may help us to understand an obscure expression of Polycrates, 
 Bishop of Ephesus, preserved in two places of Eusebius, where he 
 
252 ANGELS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 new name engraven, answering to his regeneration; 
 shall walk in sacerdotal white ; that liis name shall not 
 be blotted out of the book of life ; that he shall be a 
 pillar in the temple of God, and shall have the name 
 of Jerusalem, the city of God, written upon him. 
 He who promises these things has the key of David, 
 who '*" openeth, and no man shutteth :" those which 
 " say they are Jews, and are not," are to be made of 
 the synagogue of Satan; and the failing Laodicean 
 is counselled to obtain or buy, amongst other pre- 
 cious blessings, the healing unction, by which to 
 recover spiritual sight, and know all things. All 
 these allusions are homogeneous, and bespeak the 
 Great Prophet addressing the spiritual Israel, — the 
 churches, each tlu^ough its appropriate chief Minister, 
 the subordinate Prophet. 
 
 What, then, can be more consistent in interpreta- 
 tion, than to refer the term " angel " to an actual and 
 human servant of Christ in the Christian sanctuary ? 
 
 speaks of John the Apostle as one " who was Priest, and bore the 
 sacerdotal plate." (Book iii., chap. 31, and book v., chap. 24.) 
 That the simplest and humblest of the Apostles should wear any- 
 Jewish external badge, either on his forehead or on his breast, is 
 beyond all credibility ; and the passages in question can only be a 
 rhetorical and inflated setting forth of the eminent sanctity of that 
 Apostle. To such a style of writing Eusebius himself was addicted, 
 as any one may see by reading his Panegyric, addressed to Paulinus, 
 Bishop of Tyre : (book x., chap. 4 :) " Friends and Priests of God, 
 and ye who are clad in the sacred gown, adorned with the celestial 
 crown of glory, the inspired miction, and sacerdotal garment of the 
 Holy Ghost," &c., &c. 
 
 [After the above note was written, I had the satisfaction of seeing 
 both the exposition confirmed, and the /cry illustration from Euse- 
 Ijius adduced, by the Rev. Arthur Pcnrhyn Stanley, in his " Sermons 
 and Essays on the Apostolic Age," Oxford, 1847, p. 285.] 
 
ANGELS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 253 
 
 The term itself, and the office it describes, may have 
 been suggested by the fact, that in the Jewish Syna- 
 gogue there was the Scheliach Tsibbor, " the Apostle 
 or Angel of the church/' who offered up the prayers 
 of the congregation. And though this official was 
 not invariably the President or Chief Euler, but rather 
 acted under the Chief Euler as his delegate or mes- 
 senger, the analogy intended to be all the more sug- 
 gested by the first adoption of the term ^vas, that of 
 Christ the supreme Head, appointing His servants to 
 their several positions of oversight and of devotional 
 service. Wliat was more likely than that the Divine 
 Master, in directing the thoughtful Galilean, St. John, 
 to address the Pastors of Asia Minor, should use a 
 term which to that Apostle would be so familiar, and 
 so apt to convey the idea of an obligation to dili- 
 gence, fidelity, and love, however the Christian Angel 
 might be called to fill a higher place than the corre- 
 sponding Jewish one ? In maintaining the view that 
 the Clu'istian Church arose out of the Jewish Syna- 
 gogue, we are not bound to hold that distinct offices 
 in each are exactly similar : we are rather to look for 
 a difference corresponding to the difference of dispen- 
 sation.* Beza, who had no prelatical leanings, in his 
 
 * Tt has been mentioned in a former chapter that the Chazzan 
 sometimes fulfilled the office of Legate of the church, though the Pre- 
 sident of the synagogue was, ex officio, the Legate. In the Chi-istian 
 church the chief Minister was always the Legate ; it was he that 
 invariahly addressed Jehovah in prayer on behalf of the people. 
 Hence, the Apostle John, writing to the seven churches of Asia, styles 
 their Bishop, or President, the " Angel;" i. e., the "Legate of the 
 church ;" this word designating the Bishop's most solemn and 
 important duty, viz., to offer up prayers in the congregation. — Ber- 
 nard's Abridgmeut of ViTRiNGA, De Fet. Si/n.,]}. 193. 
 
254 ANGELS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 comment on tlie place (Eev. ii. 1) writes thus : 
 ^^^To the Angel/ that is, to the 'President/ irpo- 
 eaTWTL. The term 'Bishop' or 'Pastor' was not 
 used at first, — doubtless for this reason, that there 
 were several Bishops or Pastors in each of these 
 churches already; and because a new term was 
 needed to express, not only a super-eminent piety, 
 which, in relation to that of the people, was a star 
 as compared with a Xv^vla, 'a light-stand,' but 
 also a super-eminent responsibility, — a messenger 
 from Clirist HimseK; also the object of the Spirit's 
 message."^ 
 
 Such is the direct evidence in favour of a personal 
 Chief Euler in the primitive churches, appointed, most 
 probably, by apostolical men, and indubitably sanc- 
 tioned by the Saviour. It is the last intimation of 
 the Scripture record on the subject, and it is exactly 
 confirmed by the earliest of the uninspired records. 
 The very first of the annals of ecclesiastical history 
 presents us ^vith the same view, — a chief Ruler or 
 Bishop, presiding among other Elders or Bishops, 
 being himself styled '' Bishop," par excellence. Dr. 
 Ealph Wardlaw, in treating this subject, repels the 
 ultra-Presbyterian theory of the late Dr. Mason, of 
 New- York ; which is to the effect, that the Angel is 
 the symbol of the eldership or ministerial body : and 
 he repels it for the sufficient reason, that the Angel 
 here is no symbol at all, and, therefore, essentially 
 different from the angel of the Apocalypse, having 
 the everlasting Gospel to preach. (Rev. xiv. 6.) He 
 also seems to repel the arbitral y hypothesis, that the 
 
 * See Note (A), Appendix. 
 
PLURALITY OF CONGREGATIONS. 255 
 
 several elderships of the seven chui'ches were reduced, 
 from their early pkiral condition, to one Pastor each ; 
 and acknowledges that, as compared with this notion, 
 the view of the Angel constituting a primus inter 
 pares, " a first Elder among equals,^"* is one of the 
 conclusions in which he must be brought to acqui- 
 esce. I thankfully accept a suffrage from such a 
 quarter ; and, as to the admission of the doctrine of a 
 primus inter pares, I contend for no more. But it 
 may be said, " Why, this is nothing less than paro- 
 chial episcopacy \" Be it so, if men will contend for 
 names. There is the subordination of Ministers 
 under one head, for the sake of giving unity and 
 energy to their efforts, and for the more efficient 
 oversight of the congregation; and so far as this 
 kind of episcopacy is involved, so far Christ and His 
 Apostles, I honestly believe, are on its side. If the 
 episcopacy established in the National Church never 
 involved more than this, then it would be difficult to 
 furnish a refutation of the postulates, long since laid 
 down by Bishop Hall, Archbishop Potter, and others, 
 on tliis subject."^ But whatever hierarchical episco- 
 pacy, or prelacy, — a very different thing, — is held to 
 include, it is sufficient for our purpose to see affirmed 
 in Scripture the principle of a ministerial fellowship 
 or union, held together by the nexus of a President or 
 Chief, who, as far as we can see here, is a permanent 
 one. 
 
 If it be an episcopacy over a church, rather than 
 over churches, still it involves the oversight and dis- 
 cipline of Elders ; and in a large church, such as that 
 
 * Vide Garbett's "Bampton Lecture," vol. i. 
 
256 CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 of Epliesus was, both from apostolical and early his- 
 torical testimony, where the work of the ministry 
 must necessarily have been divided into several por- 
 tions, classes, or congregations, the whole prin- 
 ciple of a religious connexion is thereby likewise 
 affirmed. 
 
 § IX. The next step in our course of observation 
 is, to mark the evidence in favour of the supposition 
 that the city church, in the Apostles^ times, did con- 
 sist of a plurality of societies, (a plurality rendered 
 needful in order to the minuter oversight and more 
 special training of the whole flock,) yet merging itself 
 into one assembly on occasions of great and common 
 interest. And first, there is the mother church at 
 Jerusalem. The success of the Gospel here was 
 glorious. To the one hundred and twenty disciples 
 existing before the day of Pentecost, there were added 
 on that day " tliree thousand )' (Acts ii. 41 ;) after- 
 wards the Lord added daily to the church tov^ o-cd^o- 
 fMevov<;, "those who were being saved ;^^ (verse 47;) 
 even so many as " five thousand " men, (iv. 4,) exclu- 
 sive of the women, the number of whom is not stated ; 
 yea, " believers were the more added to the Lord, mul- 
 titudes both of men and women ;" (v. 14 ;) subse- 
 quently still, " the number of the disciples multiplied 
 in Jerusalem greatly ;" (vi. 7 ;) and on the occasion of 
 Paulas visit, years after, and when the excitement of 
 the first Christian Pentecost had long subsided, that 
 Apostle was informed by James that there were 
 "myriads of Jews^' who believed. (Acts xxi. 20.) 
 The question is. How could these form but one con- 
 gregation ? 
 
 Dr. Wardlaw, with his usual candour, acquiesces 
 
CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 257 
 
 in the full statement of the numbers, and acknow- 
 ledges the difficulty ; but meets it by saying, that as 
 the inspired Apostle declares the whole multitude 
 were together, and assembled in one place, no conjec- 
 tural impossibility ought to be concluded, — no pre- 
 judged difficulty, however formidable, to lie against 
 that declaration. 
 
 Most reverently we o\^ti, that what the word of 
 God plainly teaches, that we are bound to believe, 
 whatever difficulty may be in the way ; but, still, it 
 remains to be seen, whether the multitude of believers 
 were said to be so together, so to assemble, and con- 
 tinue to assemble, in one place, as is necessary to the 
 Congregational argument which he expounds. That 
 argument requires that not merely at the day of 
 Pentecost, but during the lives of the Apostles, and 
 up to the time of the flight of the Christian remnant 
 to Pella, that church, consisting, — on the occasion 
 referred to in Acts xxi., and no time either of festival 
 or concourse from other parts, — even thirty years after 
 it was founded, of many thousands of members, 
 remained all the while, except when broken by the 
 first persecution, an undistributed congregation. We 
 say again, if the inspired word asserted that so it was, 
 then only one course would be open to us, — child- 
 like submission to the statement, believing that we 
 only needed further information to make the matter 
 perfectly clear. But no such assertion do we find. 
 The aspect of impossibility which presents itself, is 
 more than conjectural; and whatever, indeed, may 
 be its value, it must surely be allowed to have a force 
 of evidence, a qualifying force, in the interpretation 
 of the narrative, just as a similar aspect of impossi- 
 s 
 
258 CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 bility is allowed to qualify in the interpretation of 
 another narrative, when it is said that there " went out 
 to him^^ [John the Baptist] '^ Jerusalem,, and all Judea, 
 and all the region round about Jordan." (Matt. iii. 5.) 
 We may, and do gladly, indeed, admit such things as 
 these : First, That the church at Jerusalem was ori- 
 ginally, and for a very short time, what every church, 
 in every city, must originally be, in the very nature of 
 things, — a single congi'egation. Second, That, at the 
 choosing of the seven eleemosynary officers, when all had 
 a common and financial interest in the question, the 
 Apostles " called the whole multitude of the disciples 
 unto them;" and that previously they were, in a cer- 
 tain and very intelligible sense, 'Hog ether" and "with 
 one accord," in Solomon's Porch. (Acts v. 12.) Third, 
 That, on special occasions afterward, a multitude is 
 mentioned as assembhng, — as when " all the multitude 
 kept silence," on the consideration by the Apostles of 
 the appeal from Antioch; and when James said to 
 Paul, on his visit above mentioned, " The multitude 
 must needs come together : for they will hear that 
 thou art come." 
 
 But let us remember that no scripture is "of private 
 interpretation;" that is, to be interpreted in an isolated 
 manner, and apart from circumstances in the liistory 
 which are intended to guide us. Thus, the behevers 
 " were together ;" that is, in the midst of a population, 
 rent and distracted by faction, they were united by a 
 holy and tender amity to each other ; and in the exercise 
 of social intercourse, for a br'.ef season, they mainly 
 fi'equented one particular area in the temple. The 
 expression, €7rl to avTo^ most fitly is used for a mental 
 or moral agreement, quite as much as for a literal 
 
CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 259 
 
 association :^ and verse 46 of the second chapter 
 seems to fix this meaning ; for there it is said^ of those 
 wlio were then together, and had all tilings common, 
 that they continued " with one accord in the temple, 
 and breaking bread from house to house ;" and, more 
 expHcitly, (v. 42,) " And daily in the temple, and in 
 every house, they ceased not to teach and preach 
 Jesus Christ :" so that houses, as well as the temple, 
 were the scene, not only of their unity and joy, but of 
 their preaching and worship. The Apostles and 
 disciples who were Christians, without, as yet, ceas- 
 ing to be Jews, would not neglect to observe the 
 hour of prayer and teaching in the temple ; and, while 
 the first visitation of glorious power and joy lasted, 
 the unbelieving part of the population was so over- 
 awed, as to permit very frequent aggregations of, at 
 least, a large portion of the church in Solomon^s 
 Porch; fulfilling, in part, the prophecy of Haggai 
 ii. 9, where it is predicted that in this place God 
 should give peace. Here, after the awful death 
 of Ananias and Sapphira, and Avhere the impression 
 of the event had so widely spread, signs and wonders 
 were done by the hands of the Apostles. 
 
 Such must have been the character of this large 
 gathering : and as to the multitude which kept silence 
 at the meeting, mentioned in the fifteenth chapter, 
 respecting circumcision ; and the multitude which, as 
 James said, in chap. xxi. 22, must needs come together ; 
 
 * Bloomfield objects to the harshness of making eVl rh avrh refer 
 to their being literally together in teaching, and quotes the LXX, in 
 support of the meaning which makes it a spiritual oneness; and 
 adduces also Thucyd., i. 79 : 'EttI rb avrh ai yvufxai ecpcpov, " They 
 agreed together in judgment, or were of one mind." — In loc. 
 
 s2 
 
260 CHUECH or Jerusalem. 
 
 {avvekOelv, a very different expression from cttI ro 
 avTo') they were just such assemblies as would be 
 gathered from the dijfferent sections of an Episcopal, 
 Presbyterian, or Congregational body, on similar occa- 
 sions of great and stirring interest in our own days : as, 
 for instance, the reception of an illustrious stranger 
 from foreign parts in one of our great city-halls, — or 
 the discussion of some matter affecting the interests 
 of foreign churclies, — a central Missionary Meeting, 
 — or the like. Thus, there is nothing in all these 
 places against the notion of a classified congregation 
 making distinct congregations in ordinary, while there 
 are indications greatly in favour of it : — ^Pirst, There is 
 the fact already mentioned, (v. 42,) tliat in private 
 houses, [Kar oIkov being opposed to ev tm lepw,) as 
 well as the temple, church ordinances — such as teach- 
 ing, preaching, praising God, and celebrating the 
 Lord^s supper — were used. Second, It is evident 
 that the apportionment of the common stock which 
 self-denying charity had yielded, was transacted in a 
 house, or separate dwelling ; for Ananias, falling dead, 
 was *"' carried out/' liis wife afterwards "came in;" 
 and the feet of them which had carried her husband 
 were " at the door." And, Third, Prom the emphatic 
 way in which the coming together of the disciples is 
 spoken of in the twenty -first chapter, it is clearly to 
 be inferred, that gathering in full was not their ordi- 
 nary practice, but only an event to be brought 
 about by a special exigency, — such as receiving an 
 Apostle's report of his labours journeys, and official 
 acts. How, then, stand the facts of the case upon 
 the whole ? 
 
 That, in the earhest days of Pentecostal power. 
 
CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 261 
 
 there were seasons when the company of believers, or 
 a great part of them, had times of assembling in one 
 of the great areas of the temple ; — tliis, to such an 
 extent, was possible: that, after the persecution, in 
 the time of Stephen, and that of James's martyrdom, 
 tliis was no longer permitted ; for there is no trace of 
 it ; St. Paul himself, and other apostolic men, hardly 
 appearing in the temple at all without producing a 
 tumult : but that in all, and through all, these events, 
 the ordinary and stated transactions of the church 
 were carried on in separate places, under the general 
 direction of the Apostles and Elders. The city-houses 
 of the East, with their inner area, would be well 
 adapted for primitive worship; and the Ministers 
 of Christ, as long as they received no precept to 
 the contrary, would fall into the religious custom 
 of their country, which was, to use houses, or syna- 
 gogues, (they might be both,) for separate teacliing 
 and worship. And it is remarkable, to say the 
 least, that James the Less, who was evidently chief 
 Pastor in Jerusalem, giving counsel to Christians 
 in general respecting their conduct in public wor- 
 ship, makes use of the very word in his Epistle : 
 (ii. 2:) "If there come a man" (not ''into your 
 clmrch,'' but ek ttjv avvarycojr]v) "into your 
 synagogue." 
 
 Ear from finding fault with the arguments of Dr. 
 "Wardlaw, when he contends against the notion of 
 the Ministers alone forming a church representative, 
 I must urge, and on his own side of this present 
 point, and that from Scripture precedent, the notion 
 of a church representative as formed by a portion of 
 the people ; for no one would seriously contend that 
 
262 CHURCH OP JERUSALEM. 
 
 every man, woman, and child was in Solomon^s Porch, 
 even on the aggregate occasions ; but rather only the 
 male portion of believers, with, perhaps, the more 
 leisurely and well-circumstanced of the women. Still 
 the most rigorous scale of deduction would leave many 
 thousands in Jerusalem; and how can it be main- 
 tained that this multitude regularly met and wor- 
 shipped there, in this Porch, or any other place equally 
 public ; concerted all measures in common ; in com- 
 mon there celebrated the Lord's supper, — the memo- 
 rial and communion of that death which was charged 
 upon the rulers of the city; were there taught and 
 nurtured through all the years of the stormy history 
 of that place, in the face of a bigoted and fanatical 
 priesthood, a jealous Roman magistracy, and an excited, 
 and oft infuriated, populace ? The sacred text does 
 not assert this. It intimates, if not the contrary, that 
 which can never be reconciled to this theory, leaving 
 out hypothetical difficulties ; and, therefore, those dif- 
 ficulties stand on their own foundation, with all their 
 weight, unopposed by any inspired declaration : and 
 thus, in coming to the close of this point in the inquiry, 
 we have a strong and just right to conclude that the 
 church (for we hear of no churches) of Jerusalem, 
 though frequently called together as a whole, was 
 composed of a number of distributed smaller societies, 
 — the Jewish model Christianised, — fed and guided 
 by the Apostles and Elders ; and, therefore, so far held 
 in its bosom the principle of '' a connexion." With this 
 view all the facts agree. We may afford to allow, that 
 the congregations of a given district — that of Judea, 
 for instance — are called in the plural, " churches ; " 
 that they, being in the country parts, and small, con- 
 
CHURCHES IN HOUSES. 263 
 
 sisted, probably, of but one congregation each ; while 
 the church in the city, spoken of in the singular, being 
 greater, must needs include several evangelised societies 
 or S}Tiagogues in its fellowship. At the same time, 
 we cannot fail to observe, that as the Palestinian 
 churches " had rest " after Stephen^s persecution had 
 subsided, so there is reason to infer that they had 
 been previously involved in the troubles of the mother 
 church, and so far had been connected with it by the 
 bond of the Apostles' and Elders' common oversight. 
 Whether, however, a nexus may, on scriptural princi- 
 ples, be used to unite churches in a district or nation, 
 is a question which shall have attention a little further 
 on ; but, so far, we have endeavoured to deduce our 
 conclusions from this portion of the inspired record. 
 
 § X. Another branch of the evidence on this sub- 
 ject is drawn from the fact, that in each of several city- 
 churches mentioned in Scripture, there is another and 
 smaller chm-ch involved, called a " church which is 
 witliin the house,'' &c. ; that is, the house of a certain 
 believer. Tliis was the case at Ephesus, where we 
 find St. Paul had been engaged in founding a Chris- 
 tian society. (Acts xviii.) The Apostle had first found 
 Aquila and Priscilla at Corinth, whither they had fled, 
 in their banishment by Claudius, from Rome; and 
 now they accompany liim hither also, and su])plement 
 his labours. Writing from Ephesus, about foui' years 
 afterwards, liis Pirst Epistle to the Corinthians, who 
 knew this godly couple well, he says : " Aquila and 
 Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church 
 that is in their house :" (xvi. 19 :) the plain inference 
 from which is, that in the society in that place there 
 was included a less society, which itseK even is called 
 
264 CHURCHES IN HOUSES. 
 
 a churcli^ and that it was a part of the entire 
 ecclesia. Dr. Davidson objects here, that the whole 
 company of believers in the several cities, up to the 
 time of Paul's visit to Miletus, is never described by 
 the term "church;" though this is in ill accordance 
 with his theory in another place, when he states 
 that Cluistian persons met for edification and worsliip 
 anywhere are really such, and that the communities 
 in the Cretan cities, before Titus ordained Elders over 
 them, were themselves such : and so, here, in each of 
 the cases where a church in the house is mentioned, 
 he takes it for a rule, that the main body of believers is 
 never called eKK\7](TLa. He supposes, in this instance, 
 that, after the great outbreak of the work, when 
 " the word of God grew so mightily and prevailed,^' 
 the smaller assembly in question was absorbed into the 
 larger one ; and therefore, when Paul stayed a while 
 at Miletus the following year, a.d. 60, it is said, "He 
 called for the Elders of the church," the minor con- 
 gregation having served the purpose of a mere tempo- 
 rary arrangement for convenience. Surely, if suppo- 
 sition be allowed a place at all, it is abundantly as 
 likely, (and Neander positively affirms the view in 
 general cases,) that this minor assembly, after such a 
 visitation, would become larger, whether Aquila and 
 Priscilla remained there much longer or not ; and that 
 the other portion or portions of the Cln-istian com- 
 munity would have increased in like manner; and 
 that a people who, on their conversion, could burn 
 Heathen and magical books to the valued amount of 
 fifty thousand pieces of silver, who had no places 
 built for purposes of Christian worship, and who 
 would certainly not be allowed to occupy either the 
 
CHURCHES IN HOUSES. 265 
 
 theatre or the temple, would have to be distributed 
 to various converted synagogues, or to houses, or other 
 places of assembly, not unhke "the school of one 
 T>Tannus,'' though they would be under the oversight 
 of the one body of Elders, who were required to " take 
 heed to all the flock /^ And, passing by the supposi- 
 tion altogether, when we read that, after Paul's unsuc- 
 cessful attempt, in the first place, upon the Ephesian 
 Jews, he " separated the disciples,'-* and disputed daily 
 in the above-mentioned school, for " the space of two 
 years ; so that all they that dwelt in Asia heard the 
 word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks;'' 
 (xix. 10 ;) it seems most startling to say that this 
 circle, comprising an Apostle and a body of disciples, 
 diffusing evangehcal light for two years, was not an 
 eKK\7]aia — a church. 
 
 Still further : about the end of the same year in 
 which the charge to the Ephesian Elders was given, 
 the Epistle to the Eomans was written ; and by this 
 we learn, that the Christian couple above mentioned 
 had then returned to Eome, and gathered a distinct 
 little society there ; for the Apostle says : " Greet 
 Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus : 
 unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the 
 churches of the Gentiles. Likewise greet the church that 
 is in their house." (Rom. xvi. 3-5.) Here, too, accord- 
 ing to Dr. Davidson's rule, the Roman Christians are 
 in a nascent state, and are not yet called a " church" 
 Then, if the absence of this word from the Epistle to 
 tlie Romans be so conclusive as to deprive the Chris- 
 tians of that city of their ecclesiastical character, why 
 should not its absence from the Epistle to the Ephe- 
 sians, written about four years afterwards, be equally 
 
266 CHURCHES IN HOUSES. 
 
 conclusive on the same pointy as it affects tliera also ? 
 And yet, from the showing of Acts xx. 17, they are, 
 unquestionably, an etcKKr^aici. Unformed a church 
 may be, in the sense of not having all its institutions 
 complete ; but, unless it be a church from the begin- 
 ning, it can never have authority for its subsequent 
 acts. 
 
 Beyond all this : the third instance mentioned in 
 Scripture, namely, that of the church in the house of 
 Nymphas, at Laodicea, is directly in the face of this 
 attempted explanation; for, in Col. iv. 15, Paul says, 
 "Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and 
 Nymphas, and the church which is in his house : '* 
 that is, as we must understand it, the church which 
 is involved in, and connected with, the company of 
 brethren, or church, of the city of Laodicea, after- 
 wards presided over by the Angel. (Rev. iii. 14.) 
 
 In the house of Pliilemon, too, at Colosse, a city 
 in the same district, there was a church existing, 
 according to the received chronology, in the very 
 year when Paul, writing to the Colossians, evidently 
 regards them as an aggregate church, just as he did 
 the Romans, from the references which he makes to 
 their Ministers, and the ecclesiastical duties which he 
 prescribes ; (i. 7 ; iii. 15 ;) and yet the usual name is 
 not specifically given : its omission is no proof of the 
 non-ecclesiastical character of the community. So 
 frail appears to us the ground, as taken by an eminent 
 writer, which he deems not to be shaken, for beheving 
 that the members of apostolically-founded churches, 
 even in great cities, were always, when organized, 
 single and undistributed congregations. Nearly all 
 candid interpreters have given up the notion of these 
 
CHURCHES IN HOUSES. 267 
 
 eKKktiaiaL being merely pious families, with the father 
 at the head, as being totally at variance with the usage 
 of speaking in the New Testament ; and no fair or 
 natural mode of exposition is left, but to regard them 
 as partly-organized portions of the larger society, 
 which is called, by way of excellence " the church/^ 
 How many other houses there might be, besides those 
 mentioned, we have no means of knowing ; especially 
 as Paul, even in Ephesus, for the space of three years, 
 taught not only publicly in synagogue or school, like 
 the Apostles at Jerusalem, but also, like them, from 
 house to house; (Acts xx. 20;) or rather (as /car 
 o'Uov<i is opposed to Srj/jboaia) in private houses.^ In 
 the church of Corinth, too, where the members must 
 have been fewer than in Jerusalem, Antioch, and 
 Ephesus, and where they are spoken of as coming 
 together in one place, the words are used in such a 
 connexion, as rather to intimate that this even was 
 not their habitual, but their exceptional, custom : 
 such as, '' IFhen ye come together •" (1 Cor. xi. 18, 20;) 
 "Ifi\\Q whole church be come together."'' (xiv. 23.) 
 
 These primitive and necessary arrangements, just 
 expounded, Avould of course involve, up to a certain 
 point, capable of further enlargement as to its appli- 
 cation, the principle of connexion. The whole pro- 
 vides for a part, takes a Minister from one section, 
 and gives him for a while to another ; raises a droop- 
 ing band here, and represses the ambition or strife of 
 another there; so gaining unison and support, on 
 the part of the Ministers and people, in reference to 
 general and common principles, that the applica- 
 
 * Sec Bloomfield in loco. 
 
268 CENTRAL AUTHORITY. 
 
 tion of them to the smaller society, or the individual, 
 should be imperative and unhindered. 
 
 § XI. We pass now to the third branch of evidence 
 in favour of the conclusion, that the principle of a 
 connexion was affirmed, and initially acted upon, in 
 apostolic times; that is, the evidence in favour of 
 the exercise, by mutual consent, of a mild and cen- 
 tral authority over the churches of a district. The 
 principal instance is that of the Apostles and Elders 
 at Jerusalem framing regulations respecting the 
 observance of Jewish religious customs by Gentile 
 converts. The facts are these : — The members of the 
 church at Jerusalem who were scattered at the perse- 
 cution, find their way to the great Syrian metropolis, 
 Antioch, and plant the Gospel there : the first con- 
 verts, "a great number," are visited and con- 
 firmed by Barnabas, who, in order to extend the work, 
 hastens to Tarsus to fetch Paul, and, bringing him to 
 Antioch, they two continue for a year to assemble 
 themselves with the church, and to teach much 
 people ; (Acts xi. 22 ;) they are reinforced, in the 
 meanwhile, by Prophets who come from Jerusalem ; 
 and, learning by a prophecy that there will be a 
 famine in Jerusalem, the generous Antiochians, 
 grateful for having received the Gospel thence, send 
 pecuniary suppHes to the Apostles and Elders, to 
 mitigate that calamity. In this instance, there are 
 obHgations created and recognised, which are not to 
 be lost sight of hereafter. 
 
 Several years after this, Paul and Barnabas are 
 again in Antioch, and are separated by the Holy 
 Ghost from the rest of the apostolic band, for the 
 purpose of fulfilling a special mission in Asia Minor; 
 
COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM. 269 
 
 and, having fulfilled it, tliey return to Antioch, and 
 abide a long time with the disciples ; so that, up to 
 this point, the Gospel has been preached in this city, 
 and, for a great part of the time, by the accomplished 
 Hebraist Paul liimself, for, at least, nearly ten years. 
 At this period of the history we are informed, that 
 "certain men, wliich came down from Judea, taught the 
 brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the 
 manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.'^ (Acts xv. 1.) 
 These (probably uncommissioned teachers; for the 
 Apostles and Elders gave them " no such command- 
 ment ") were confronted by Paul and Barnabas, who 
 "had no small dissension and disputation with them.^^ 
 The schism, however, was so formidable, that it was de- 
 termined that an appeal should be made to the college 
 of the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem about the 
 question ; and Paul and Barnabas, with certain others, 
 went accordingly. The appeal was heard, the matter 
 determined, the Sojfiara, (xvi.4,)the "things decreed,^'' 
 were embodied in a pastoral letter, and given to the 
 churches all around "to keep /^ the Apostles and 
 Elders thereby, with affectionate dignity, and confiding 
 in the Clmstian spu'it of the people whom they had 
 made Christian, administering among them a justly 
 relative, though limited, authority. 
 
 To this it has been objected, chiefly by Congrega- 
 tional writers, that the case is one which cannot be 
 quoted by any party, inasmuch as the decision involved 
 the settlement of a doctrinal point by direct inspira- 
 tion of the Holy Ghost in the Apostles ; and that the 
 circumstances of the behevers at Antioch were such 
 as no people subsequently could be placed in. I greatly 
 desire to avoid, as much as possible, the polemical 
 
270 COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 tone, and to cultivate the expository one, in pursuance 
 of this subject : therefore, while I have nothing to do 
 with the arguments of Dr. Wardlaw or Dr. Davidson, 
 so far as they combat ultra-Presbyterian or ultra- 
 Prelatical theories, I will endeavour to meet, without 
 mentioning, all those positions of theirs which appear 
 to me to be largely at variance with the facts and 
 spirit of the history ; and trust that, if these pages 
 should be considered to contain a refutation of the 
 opinion mentioned above, they will not, by any occa- 
 sional use of the former method, betray any want of 
 respect towards estimable dissentients. 
 
 § XII. Pirst, then, B tvas not a direct decision 
 of inspiration in the Apostles which originated 
 the framing and imposition of " the decrees." 
 
 Granting that the Apostles took the chief part in this 
 meeting, they did not always, and necessarily, when 
 they were superintending and edifying the churches, 
 act by inspiration. Tliis gift had reference rather 
 to their completion of the code of New-Testament 
 truth, — that men might believe in Clirist tlirough 
 " their word.''' In many respects they acted from the 
 promptings of judgment and conscience, like other 
 men."^ When Dr. Wardlaw affirms that an Apostle 
 can hardly be conceived of apart from his inspiration, 
 it seems to be in forgetfulness of these facts, among 
 others, — that Peter, on one occasion, "was to be 
 blamed," and Paul spoke unadvisedly to the High 
 Priest. Moreover, no claim of inspiration is here put 
 forth. It is true, that in his Epistle to the Galatians, 
 referring, probably, to this transaction, he says, 
 
 * So Dr. Hind, iu his " History of the Rise and Early Pro- 
 gress of Chi'istianity." Second Edition. 1 846. 
 
COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM. 271 
 
 (ii. 2,) that he "went up'' to Jerusalem "by revela- 
 tion )" but this expression clearly refers to a Divine 
 monition, urging him away to that metropoHs, at a 
 time when he would gladly have remained where he 
 was, not to anything that he should say or do there ; 
 just as, when afterwards he was at Tyre, several dis- 
 ciples warned him, through the Spirit, that he should 
 not go up to Jerusalem. (Acts xxi. 4.) Such a moni- 
 tion was by no means the pecuHar sign of an Apostle, 
 or the token of inspiration. It is true, also, that, in 
 the pastoral letter, we have the expression, "Por it 
 seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to ns" &c. ; but 
 this is abundantly explained by the testimony of the 
 Apostle Peter, who said to his brethren on this occa- 
 sion, "Ye know that a good while ago God made 
 choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth 
 should hear the word of the Gospel, and believe. 
 And God, who knoweth the hearts, bore them witness, 
 giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us, 
 and put no difference between us and them, purifpng 
 their hearts by faith." Now this mention of what 
 took place a good wliile (perhaps ten years) before, 
 directs us to the visit of that Apostle to Joppa, 
 from whence he w^as directed to Csesarea, and the 
 house of Cornelius. At Joppa, in an ecstasy, he 
 saw the vision of the sheet let down to earth ; and, 
 while he mused upon the import of the vision, the 
 Spirit urged liim forward, and explained it to the 
 effect, that the meats and drinks of circumcised men 
 should not separate such men from extending the 
 Gospel to those beyond themselves; that, in fact, 
 God had accepted uncircumcised men ; thereby leaving 
 it to be implied, that neither the use of such meats, 
 
272 COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 nor the observance of the more distinctive rite with 
 wliich they were associated, was a necessary condition 
 of salvation. This was the utterance and oracle of 
 the Holy Ghost on the question; it had been reite- 
 rated by Peter to a select company of Jewish dissen- 
 tients awhile before ; (Acts xi. ;) and now, on this 
 solemn and anxious occasion, it is reproduced once 
 more, and in its complete form. The other Apostles 
 and the Elders who were present, received tliis testi- 
 mony as to past inspiration, and appended to it their 
 own commentary and judgment, drawn from Scrip- 
 ture precedents, which were to the effect that, how- 
 ever Jewish and Hellenist behevers did and should 
 observe circumcision and the law, it should not be 
 binding upon Gentile converts to imitate them in this 
 respect : so that they say in their letter, " It seemed 
 good to the Holy Ghost, and to us )' that is, " to the 
 Holy Ghost " in one respect, and " to us ^' in another. 
 The decision of the Holy Ghost and of the Council, 
 however bearing on the same conclusion, were not in 
 reference to the same point.^ That of the Spirit had 
 to be dated back ; it had been given at Joppa, and 
 was sealed and confirmed under Peter^s ministry at 
 Csesarea : that of the assembly was a human and miois- 
 terial judgment, as to the manner in which the prin- 
 ciple, thus affirmed, should be brought to bear upon 
 a special case. 
 
 That all the Ministers of Christ then present were 
 under such an influence of the Holy Ghost, sanctify- 
 ing and simpHfying human motives and perceptions, 
 as all good men met in the name of Christ may look 
 
 * So, again, Dr. Hind, on Acts xv. 
 
COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM. 273 
 
 for, in all ages, is not denied ; it is rather asserted : 
 but this is not the kind of influence contended for 
 by those who would set aside the evidence afforded 
 by this transaction. 
 
 § XIII. Again : the notion of the direct inspira- 
 tion of the deliberating assembly is inconsistent with 
 the manner in which the prohibitory clauses of the 
 decision were subsequently regarded, and applied in 
 practice. An inspired decision is immutable, — part 
 of the word of God, one jot or tittle of which can 
 never pass away. The Holy Ghost, in reference to 
 an article of faith and practice, does not say at one 
 time, and unsay at another ; yet the decree, in respect 
 of meats offered to idols, is clearly relaxed by St. Paul, 
 who was present at this council, in favour of intelli- 
 gent Corinthians, (I Cor. viii. 9,) also in writing to 
 Timothy, (1 Tim. iv. 4, 5,) and most probably in the 
 case of the Romans. (Eom. xiv. 14.) Indeed, soon 
 after this meeting was held, Paul took Timothy, and 
 circumcised him, although his father was a Greek. 
 There was a reason for the adoption of the subordi- 
 nate rules, called, in the inspired text, Soyfxara, at the 
 time of the appeal from Antioch ; for then the more 
 decidedly Jewish section of the churches was in a con- 
 dition to wrestle with and perturb the other : and there 
 was equal reason for their partial repeal, when, at a 
 later period, Judaism was sensibly declining, and the 
 old llebraising spirit needed less to be conciliated. 
 Yet, when these were first stated, they were reasons 
 deduced and adopted by sanctified judgment, — not 
 direct oracles from God, though approved by Him 
 in the present emergency. If direct inspiration 
 were supposed, what need would there have been 
 
274 COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 to deliberate on the matter ? So far as the " dispu- 
 tation'^ was concerned^ this, no doubt, arose rather 
 from the contentions of the differing parties among 
 themselves, previous to the taking counsel of the 
 Apostles and Elders ; but, as to the comparing and dis- 
 cussing of opinions on the part of the ministerial college, 
 this is not the way to enunciate a Divine burden or com- 
 mission : the process is too laborious and slow, and 
 savours of human, rather than of Divine, wisdom. 
 Those who are inspired need not meet to verify their 
 inspirations; and it is an important argument in 
 the hands of the defenders of revelation, that the 
 sacred writers, as such, never did meet, but that their 
 testimony was several and independent. 
 
 § XIV. Again : there was no need of inspiration, 
 as there was no declaration of new doctrinal truth. 
 
 Paul and Barnabas neither received nor required 
 new light on the subject of the terms of human salva- 
 tion: inspiration had settled this matter previously. 
 They could hardly have preached at Antioch, for ten 
 years, to Jew and Gentile, — especially when we remem- 
 ber the circumstances of Paul's conversion, and the 
 Lord's charge to him at the time, — without stating 
 the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith in 
 Christ, without the deeds of the ceremonial or of the 
 moral law. They not only held disputation with the 
 false teachers, but there was " dissension /' that is, 
 they, Paul and Barnabas, were opposed to them. 
 Yet the heresy had so far succeeded in unsettling the 
 church, that the influence of Paul and liis coadjutor 
 could not alone allay the ferment ; and it was deter- 
 mined to appeal to the church at Jerusalem, appa- 
 rently for two reasons : first, that it might be made to 
 
COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM. 275 
 
 appear that the doctrine of the Judaisers was not the 
 doctrine of the Apostles ; that, therefore, these false 
 teachers might be put to shame and convicted, both 
 as to their being unauthorised, and as to their 
 departing from the doctrinal standard : and, secondly, 
 that the council of Ministers might determine for the 
 church at Antioch, and all other churches concerned, 
 what they could not decide for themselves, — how far 
 an undoubted law of Christ, made known by His 
 Spirit, and interpreted in harmony with all other reve- 
 lation, affected, at the present period, the several and 
 separating observances of Jew and Gentile. Accord- 
 ingly, the Apostles and Elders meet, after that Paul 
 and Barnabas had encountered on their arrival at 
 Jerusalem some of the believers who had been Phari- 
 sees: they join in deliberation. Peter, Paul, and 
 Barnabas declare themselves fully, in the way of nar- 
 ration ; and James quotes an inspired and harmonious 
 enunciation of the Prophet Amos, (ix. 11, 12,) from 
 the spirit of which he draws his conclusion, and 
 asserts it. In this conclusion all the rest agree, and 
 the " decrees^^ are committed to writing, as loosing 
 Gentile behevers, on the one hand, from the cere- 
 monial yoke, and binding them, on the other, to cer- 
 tain precepts of purity, which were partly expedient, 
 and partly of universal obhgation. And if we wonder 
 for a moment at the especial mention of fornication, 
 we have only to remember that the abominations of 
 the idol-grove, Daphne, near Antioch, had so polluted 
 society in general, that even Christians, especially up 
 to the last days of the Emperor Julian, needed to have 
 all the warning which " the law of the Spirit of life in 
 Christ Jesus " could tlu-ow around them, in order to 
 
276 COUNCIL AT JEETJSALEM. 
 
 tlieir vigilance against tliis sin. The Ministers on 
 this occasion were the expositoes of the law of 
 Christ. 
 
 § XY. The quotation of the Prophet Amos by 
 James also shows that they reasoned and judged from 
 a past, rather than acted from a present, inspiration. 
 
 The passage is taken from verses 11 and 12 of the 
 ninth chapter of that Prophet : "After this I will return, 
 and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is 
 fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, 
 and I will set it up : that the residue of men miglit 
 seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom 
 my name is caUed, saith the Lord, who doeth all these 
 things." The quotation is made from the Seventy, 
 a version almost uniformly adopted by our Lord and 
 His Apostles; and, notwithstanding a discrepancy 
 in the Hebrew, which may have arisen from some 
 Jewish mistake in later days, the words are to be 
 taken as representing the true sense of the Prophet. 
 The usual exposition is to take the phrase, "tabernacle 
 of David," as the figure of David^s house or kingdom, 
 and to refer its renewed institution to the setting up 
 of the kingdom of Christ, the spiritual David, or 
 King of Zion : but in this view the prophecy has no 
 point or bearing on the present question ; for there 
 was nothing in David^s regal administration, as such, 
 which could be construed into an analogy or type 
 of the extension of rehgious privileges unto extra- 
 Israelitish nations. Where a more literal rendering of 
 the phrase will stand, it is no unsound rule of inter- 
 pretation to prefer it to the figurative ; and it must 
 be remembered, therefore, that there was a Kteral 
 tabernacle of David, that is, a sacred tent or sanctuary. 
 
COirSClL AT JERUSALEM. 277 
 
 on Mount Zion, to which he conveyed the ark of God, 
 after he had removed it from the house of Obed-Edom. 
 (1 Cliron. XV. 1.) Tliis sjonbol of the Divine Presence 
 had never, since the struggles mth the Philistines, 
 been restored to the tabernacle of Moses, which taber- 
 nacle was now at Gibeon. The new sanctuary of 
 David was appointed for a simple and spiritual 
 worship : Asaph, Obed-Edom, and other spiritually- 
 minded men, were left therein to conduct that 
 worship, — a service of song, mingled with teacliing, 
 ministration, and prayer, without the ancient ceremo- 
 nial, and, especially, "nithout animal sacrifice ; while 
 "Zadok the Priest, and his brethren the Priests," 
 were left in the tabernacle of the Lord, in the high 
 place at Gibeon, that they might " offer burnt offerings 
 unto the Lord, upon the altar of the burnt offering 
 continually morning and evening, and to do according 
 to all that is written in the law of the Lord." (1 Chron. 
 x\'i. -iO.) In a few words, the " tabernacle of David," as 
 set up by David^s prophetic act, was the representation 
 of a pure and spiritual worship of God, without any of 
 the accompaniments of the ceremonial law, — a worsliip 
 in which the Gentiles are represented as taking a 
 part; inasmuch as the Psalm with which tliis sanc- 
 tuary was opened, makes reference to them in this 
 particidar. (1 Chron. xvi. 7-36.) Tliis "tabernacle of 
 David" remained for many years, attended by its 
 spiritual worshippers ; but, as the nation relapsed into 
 idolatry, it fell into disuse and neglect ; but the Book 
 of Psalms, including Psalm cv., could hardly be used 
 without the memory of it surviving. Viewing the 
 subject in this light, the prophecy is fidl to the point 
 for wliich it is quoted by the Apostle James the Less. 
 
278 COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 It was no matter of doubt to New-Testament believers 
 of all classes, whether there should be a spiritual 
 worship founded on faith in Christ ; but many believed 
 and taught, that the ancient ceremonial was an un- 
 abrogated and necessary appendage to this worship. 
 The Apostle, after hearing the sentiments of the rest, 
 turns to this prediction, and regards it as foretelling 
 the setting-up of a spiritual edifice in which the 
 ceremonial law of Moses had no recognition : then 
 he justly infers the right of the Gentile to be freed 
 from the yoke of circumcision. The wisdom of tliis 
 Apostle, in thus reasoning from Holy Scripture, 
 brought the matter to its issue ; for there was now no 
 further deliberation.^ 
 
 § XVI. And once more : the circumstances of the 
 appealing party were not perfectly unique, but rather 
 analogous to circumstances which have occurred in 
 the history of the church, and may yet occur. 
 
 The law that the Hebrew institute should fail, and 
 the Christian church take its place, was a leading pro- 
 vision of the kingdom of heaven ; but, in the appli- 
 cation of this law, the subject had to be viewed in 
 various aspects, according to the circumstances of 
 communities and individuals. If everything had 
 been done suddenly and violently, absolutely abro- 
 gating the Sabbath and circumcision, to one party, and 
 requiring from the Gentile, the other, no abstinence 
 from articles of food which served as a test of idolatry, 
 
 * So far am I from undervaluing lay-teaching in God's church, 
 that I thankfully acknowledge myself indebted to a layman of many 
 virtues and attainments, — George Smith, Esq., of Trevu, Camborne, 
 in Cornwall, who has expanded and illustrated the prophecy at large, 
 in a discourse in the " Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine," 1849, p. 241, 
 et seq., — for aid iu this inquiiy. 
 
COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM. 279 
 
 then the persecuting strife would have been so fearful, 
 that, as we have said already, the early church would 
 have perished in the storm : but collective wisdom 
 interferes, strengthens the weak, protects the assailed, 
 resolves the scrupulous, and warns the lax, — and 
 all under sanction of the same primary law. Thus 
 questions have arisen respecting the prompt abo- 
 lition, or otherwise, of all traces of caste among 
 the Christianised natives of India, and respecting 
 the possession of slaves among the professing com- 
 munions of North America, which single churches 
 have not been able to settle to their satisfaction, or, at 
 least, not so far as to enable them to bear the full 
 weight of that responsibility which their opinions have 
 imposed ; and in these instances a case has arisen in 
 which collective wisdom might have, and perhaps has, 
 been brought to explicate, in synodal form, an already 
 known law of Christ in its bearing on the whole details; 
 taking care to observe in all cases, as most necessary 
 to the spirit of the Gospel, that the parties appeaHng, 
 and the parties deliberating, are bound to each other 
 only by this compact; namely, that it is insufficient 
 wisdom deferring to that wliich is — at least, is deemed 
 — sufficient; and that, in every case, the resolutions 
 and ordinances made by an aggregation of churches, 
 and binding on single churches, are simply rules by 
 which the laws of Christ may be in particular instances 
 applied, and not, in the strict sense, laws actual. 
 
 With regard to the part which was taken by the 
 laity or people at the synod of Jerusalem, we shall 
 speak of this in the proper place : but now, in drawing 
 the conclusion, notliing appears clearer to us, than that 
 its decrees were decisions of associated Ministers of 
 
280 GENERAL DEDUCTIONS. 
 
 several and distinct clmrclies, affirming a doctrinal 
 standard and test^ or forming together — under the 
 usual light and teaching of the Holy Spirit, as to 
 what was best to be done at a particular crisis — 
 decisions which were confidingly, not in a spirit of 
 lordship, imposed upon their flocks as a whole; and 
 therefore this arrangement may be imitated. 
 
 § XYII. Eeviewing this chapter, we have, then, 
 noted tln-ee branches of evidence upon which to 
 repose our main doctrine : — Pirst, that in the times 
 of the Apostles there was generally in each of the 
 churches a plurality of Ministers, and that these 
 Ministers were united and directed by a Praises^ or 
 "Angel,^^ or Pastor Padormii, thus forming a minis- 
 terial union within the church. Secondly, that seve- 
 ral churches, or larger congregations, were neces- 
 sarily distributed into minor assembhes, or rather were 
 raised out of these latter, all, however, being subject to 
 the same body of Elders. And, tliirdly, that, in a case 
 of perplexing controversy, a synodal decision of many 
 Elders is made to take effect upon the churches, both 
 of Syria and Lesser Asia ; thereby affirming, to this 
 extent, the lawfulness of resolving controversies by 
 synodal decision, and, pro tanto, likewise the lawful- 
 ness of a common jurisdiction. Beyond this we can- 
 not carry the primitive ideal. Enough was elicited, 
 during the lives of the Apostles, to show what the 
 churches of Christ might lawfully, not what they 
 must necessarily, be in after-ages. Great injury has 
 been done to the cause of truth by extreme sys- 
 tematisers : high Episcopahans labouring to show 
 that at Jerusalem, Ephesus, and similar places, there 
 were the Elders in their respective parishes, and the 
 
WESLEYAN EMBODIMENT. 281 
 
 Bishop prelatically over them; high Presbyterians, 
 that the teacliing and ruling Elders superintending 
 the early classes in these places, were themselves the 
 church representative, meeting statedly in synod, 
 and thus carrying on the work and doing the will of 
 the King in Zion ; ultra-Independents resolving the 
 churclies into separate religious republics, each of 
 which acknowledged no office-bearers but whom its 
 own members appointed, and no decision on doctrinal 
 or economical matters but what a majority of those 
 members approved. We are bold to say that, as they 
 are thus stiffly defined, the Scripture repudiates all 
 these schemes, as much as it would a stiffly-defined 
 Wesleyanism : the handywork of God is not thus to 
 be reduced to man^s measure; or, rather, the 
 " beauty of the Lord our God " upon us is not to 
 be defaced, or quaintly set forth in the hard lines 
 of " our handy work.''' The human master-builder, 
 therefore, has mainly to do this, — to watch how a 
 living and loving Christianity expanded itself, when 
 the world was all against it ; preserving inviolate the 
 relations of all God's people to each other, and 
 making provision for the strengthening and perpetua- 
 tion of Christianity, — in order to see what are fun- 
 damental laws, and what are circumstantial and tran- 
 sient details of arrangement, and to act accordingly."^ 
 § XVIII. "With these Scripture deductions can- 
 didly considered, then, let every upright-minded 
 Christian look over the particulars in which the 
 Wesleyan Societies form one united body ; and then 
 let him be asked, if such a regimen cannot bear 
 
 * Sec Note (B), Appendix. 
 
282 WESLEY AN EMBODIMENT. 
 
 as fearless an appeal to the spirit of the apostolic 
 institutions^ as can other systems wliich are loudest 
 in their claim of apostolicity. Several Societies in 
 a town, and in the villages surrounding it, are placed 
 under the care of several Elders or Ministers, who in 
 mutual council and conjunction instruct and oversee 
 the whole, as well as attend to the raising and direc- 
 tion of office-bearers : they are appointed in regular 
 turns to the several congregations by one (usually the 
 senior) of their own number, the Superintendent, to 
 whose disciplinary control they are likewise amen- 
 able. This is a Circuit. A number of Circuits round 
 a particular centre form a District ; and once a year, 
 the Ministers and Stewards (who are laymen) of the 
 Circuits meet in a kind of synod, called the District- 
 Meeting, and exercise their various functions in 
 adjusting the temporal and spiritual affairs of the 
 year ; and here is Hkewise a presiding Minister, annu- 
 ally elected by liis brethren, who not only guides the 
 deliberations of this assembly, but becomes the recog- 
 nised medium of communication between it and the 
 Conference. Lastly, the Conference itseK is consti- 
 tuted, according to Mr. Wesley^s Deed of Declara- 
 tion, by one hundred ordained Ministers of certain 
 standing, duly maintained in its full number by the 
 regular supply of vacancies made by death or super- 
 annuation from year to year. This Conference reviews 
 the acts of the District-Meetings, hears all appeals, 
 receives all candidates for the ministry, ordains all 
 who have been tried and approved, and exercises a 
 general oversight in respect of the whole " Connexion." 
 In this assembly, too, of necessity there is a Presi- 
 dent, annually elected, irpoearco^, but not j^ralatm. 
 
WESLEYAN EMBODIMENT. 283 
 
 This arrangement, for upwards of a Imnclrecl years, 
 has preserved prompt and effective ministerial disci- 
 pline where otherwise it could not be exercised; 
 maintained purity of doctrine intact, amid surround- 
 ing changes in that respect which are almost without 
 parallel in the history of Christianity; and secured 
 the possession of places of worship on a basis which 
 nothing but general anarchy could shake. If the 
 guidance and oversight of ministerial brethren be 
 simply regarded, so far it has Episcopacy, vesting, 
 however, the ordaining authority in their whole body : 
 if the equality of those brethren in point of order, so 
 far Presbytery : if the recognition of the call of 
 ]\Iinisters, and voluntary contribution of the people 
 towards their support, then, in these respects. Inde- 
 pendency, though, no doubt, the cast of the whole is 
 essentially Presbyterian : but, on the supposition that 
 only common faithfulness had been exercised from 
 the first days of Mr. Wesley^s ministry to the year of 
 formal separation from the Church of England, in 
 response to the call of Providence, and towards the 
 souls of men, no power could prevent it from becom- 
 ing what it has become, to the great offence of many, 
 — a " Connexion.''^ And if there were a Scripture pre- 
 cedent for applying the term " church " to the conso- 
 ciated congregations of a whole country, no commu- 
 nion could put forth a juster claim to the title ; inas- 
 much as its Pastors, being continually moved from 
 Circuit to Circuit, are rather Pastors in common of 
 the whole, than specially of several and distinct parts. 
 Such a constant transference may be, and is, 
 attended with its peculiar inconvenience and losses ; 
 unscriptural it cannot be deemed, so long as we have 
 
284 WESLEYAN EMBODIMENT. 
 
 the example of similar journeyings and transfer of 
 labour in the Acts of the Apostles : but this necessi- 
 tated implication of Society with Society, tln^ough the 
 common interchange of Preachers and Pastors, has 
 rendered the very notion of isolating a particular 
 people, in a particular place, utterly abhorrent and 
 alien from the entire spirit of the communion. It is 
 not a mere conventional or voluntary arrangement by 
 which the Methodist Circuits are bound together : 
 the union rather grows out of real and spiritual rela- 
 tions between men, which are recognised in the New 
 Testament : for there are persons located here in this 
 sphere and Society, who owe deference and love, and 
 their all of spiritual good, to servants of Clirist who 
 are now labouring yonder, in another Society. The 
 spiritual bond, to say the least, is much stronger 
 than that which ties the archdeaconries of a diocese, 
 or the dioceses of a province or nation, together. 
 Besides this, no Society or Circuit has come into this 
 union without sohciting a benefit from that rela- 
 tionship wliich it could not command, being isolated : 
 it has, therefore, sought for jurisdiction; and, con- 
 nexional government being sought for, the right of 
 its exercise can be a question no more. And again 
 we say, it is of no avail for an opponent to object, 
 that there was no annual conference or organized 
 union of the churches in the apostoUc days ; for so 
 there was neither diocese, as it is now, nor yet con- 
 gregations with single Pastors : it is enough for us 
 if the principle of union be not only unforbidden, 
 but on a somewhat smaller scale affirmed and embo- 
 died in fact. Eyeing the same type, seeking the same 
 objects, giving expansion to the same gifts, and exer- 
 
LAW OF PEACE. 285 
 
 cising the same restraints, as the early churches, we 
 find ourselves in our present i:)osition. If we are in 
 this ship, and the scene is dark and stormy, and the 
 vessel is assailed by mighty waves, it is Christ who 
 has constrained us to enter it, and we may safely 
 trust Him with the results. 
 
 § XIX. And all tliis helps us, lastly, to come to a 
 distinct conclusion, as to the sin or innocence of dis- 
 turbing the peace, or subverting^ by strife or debate, 
 the order, of such a communion. He who would 
 recklessly agitate and tear it in pieces, and trample 
 upon its acknowledged rules, — that is, when the sys- 
 tem makes all reasonable provision for the expression 
 of the opinion and wishes of distinct persons and 
 Societies, — sins against those very principles, wliicli 
 he would sin against, if he were the arch- disturber of 
 a single congregation. There is no claim made upon 
 liis deference and love by the single congregation, 
 which that communion does not make upon him in the 
 name of Christ with even added authority : there is 
 no Scripture rule, Avritten in plain words, compelling 
 liis acquiescence and approval, relating to the avoid- 
 ance, in his own little circle, of ambitious strife, of 
 clamour and divisive rancour, which does not bind 
 him, and that the more awfully in proportion to the 
 vaster breadth over which the evil or good of his 
 example may flow, in reference to his position, as it 
 stands related to the whole aggregate fellowship : 
 and, therefore, if there be such a tiling contemplated 
 in the apostohc writings, as a man convicted of violat- 
 ing the Saviour's great and holy law of peace, he is 
 so convicted, whether the matter be brought home by 
 his own acknowledgment, or by the testimony of 
 
286 AGGRESSION DISCLAIMED. 
 
 others, who, himself the servant of sin, and promising 
 others Hberty, disturbs the churches to the paralysing 
 of religion, and the undoing of souls. 
 
 § XX. But, in expounding these views, my mis- 
 sion has not been aggressive. I have no heart to 
 assail those forms of church order in which other 
 brethren express their piety and faith. And had not 
 piety and faith been assailed through the medium of 
 a combined attack upon my own, I had not been 
 even their defender. If the main requirements of 
 New-Testament law be fulfilled in the Congregational 
 or other regimen, be it so : I shall lose nothing by 
 the fruit which they lay up to life eternal, but rather 
 rejoice in the fact, that other sheaves are gathered 
 beside my own. If unfaithful and immoral Ministers 
 are censured or silenced ; if heresies are condemned 
 and arrested; if the weak and right are protected 
 against the wrong and strong ; if Christian doctrine is 
 preserved in purity, and a succession of faithful men 
 in the churches seciu-ed, by any means, formal or 
 informal, estabHshed or free; — I will learn, by the 
 help of God, with Barnabas, to be heartily glad in so 
 seeing His grace. But in asserting and defending the 
 Wesleyan regimen, which particularly aims at these 
 things, and while candidly acknowledging what is 
 doubtful therein in respect of minor particulars, I 
 claim to be as honest, fearless, and thorough-going in 
 scriptural investigation as they, or any dissentient 
 parties formerly of our communion, can be. Whe- 
 ther, however, there be form or no form, essential 
 connexion is God's own order, and connexion, too, by 
 the bond of jurisdiction. Witliout its main conditions, 
 no Missionary Society could be formed, nor the Gos- 
 
APPENDIX. 287 
 
 pel extended in the more neglected parts of our own 
 land. Even Independent brethren must have county 
 associations, when they would spread abroad the 
 truth ; for, by combination in these cases, they raise 
 churches, and provide Pastors for them. And no 
 wonder : the principle pervades all nature. Look 
 how the sun, with its law of attraction, governs the 
 earth and moon : see how the moon governs the 
 ocean, and the ocean the atmosphere and clouds, and 
 they, again, the thirsty earth. And say not, that 
 tliis is mere sentiment, a sort of music of the spheres, 
 or that it is no t}^e for us to follow ; for, where there 
 is such an influence of vast forces, there is all the 
 energy, as well as the sentiment, of law ; and although 
 Jehovah, who cannot err, be the Lawgiver, yet if His 
 children imitate Him as well in His purity as in 
 His other perfections, there will be no speech or 
 language where that voice is not heard ; and as we 
 use His words to guide our devotions, so we shall use 
 His works as the model after which to frame our 
 institutions; that is, if there be anything in the 
 New-Testament liistory or revelation as to those 
 institutions, true as they are to universal nature, 
 which requires to be illustrated in minuter form. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note (A), page 254. 
 
 Rev. I. 16. — "In accordance with the uniform symbolical use of 
 the Revelation, the stars denote rulers. Compare, upon the stars as 
 symbols of a ruler's greatness and glory, \i. 13 ; xii. 4. By the 
 explanation given in verse 20, the seven stars signify the overseers of 
 the seven churches. The representation of these under this symbol 
 
288 APPENDIX. 
 
 certainly accords ill with the view of those who maintain the demo- 
 cratic character of the Chi'istian polity. 'Pure society officials, 
 whose authority flowed from no other source than that of the church 
 itself,' who 'were simply the chmx-h's Presidents, and nothing 
 more,' could not possibly have been represented under stars. This 
 quite plainly betokens a power over the community i as does also the 
 circumstance, that generally a double symbol is given for the rulers 
 and the spiritual community, which strangely disagrees with the view 
 now so much cried up ; and, still farther, the strength and greatness of 
 the charges which are given in the Epistles to the rulers, which neces- 
 sarily imply the elevation of their office. Por only to whom much is 
 given can much be required of them. Equally at variance with the 
 view now currently entertained, is what Paul says, in Acts xx. 28, 
 to the Elders of the church of Ephesus, &c., if only it be viewed 
 with an unprejudiced eye, and not in the light of this present time, 
 which is so much averse to all the restraints both of law and autho- 
 rity. That Christ has the stars in His right hand, marks HQs uncon- 
 ditional power over them." 
 
 " We have no room to doubt from whom the sending proceeds : the 
 angels are God's messengers : the angels of the churches could only 
 be the angels whom God had sent to the churches, and had intrusted 
 v.-ith the charge of them. Compare Matt, xviii. 10 ; according to 
 which the angel of any one is the angel to whom the charge of him 
 is intrusted. (Acts xii. 15.) But, on the other hand, the messengers 
 of the churches could only be those whom the churches themselves 
 had sent, or their commissioners." — Professoe Hengstenbebg on 
 Revelation, vol. i., pp. 102, 112. 1851. 
 
 Note (B), page 281. 
 
 It wiU scarcely be denied, that, however in the apostolic age, and 
 dmnng the second century, each Bishop was so far independent, as 
 that there was no central Bishop in a kingdom or province who 
 could exercise authority over him, there was, nevertheless, a virtual 
 and acknowledged bond of connexion among aU who laboured in the 
 same province, the restraints of which were hardly less than those 
 which we are supposed to legalise. There was restraint as regards 
 doctrine : aU rulers of chm-ches were under common obligation to 
 avoid and withhold recognition from a teacher of error, according to 
 the precept of the last sm-viving Apostle : " If there come any unto 
 you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, 
 neither bid him God speed : for he that biddeth him God speed is 
 
APPENDIX. 289 
 
 partaker of his evil deeds." (2 John 10, 11.) There was, likewise, 
 no interconimuuion allowed of the members of one church with 
 another, except when the parties concerned brought fi-om their 
 respective Pastors the literce commicnicatorid;, commend at oria;, or 
 dimissori<e, as the case might require ; and these letters the Pastors 
 in question might give or withhold. (See Bingham, book ii., chap. 
 4.) And, besides this, there was mutual consent to ratify acts of 
 discipline; so that no person expelled from one church could be 
 received into another, without repentance, and the consent of his 
 former Pastor. It is difficult to fix, with any precision, the date of 
 the Apostolical Canons ; but the labours of Bishop Beveridge, in his 
 Codex Canonum Eccles. Prim., 1678, have left scarcely a doubt 
 remaining, that, however they were first known in documentary 
 form, they are the embodiment of what was custom and usage in the 
 best-regulated churches, from the death of the Apostles to the earli- 
 est of the Councils on discipline. Canon xii. may be taken as a 
 specimen of the spirit of these rules, so far as this mutual under- 
 standing to ratify and observe the acts of the several churches is 
 concerned : Si quis Clericus aut laicus segregates, sive non recipi- 
 endus, discedens in alia urbe receptusfuerit, absque Uteris commen- 
 datitiis, segregetur et qui recepit, et qui receptus est. " If any Minis- 
 ter or lajTnan who is excommunicated, or not to be received to com- 
 munion, leaving, shall be received in another city, without his letters 
 commendatoiy, then let him who receives, and him who is received, 
 be alike excommunicated." Those rules of antiquity, too, which 
 require the Pastors of a province to join in Episcopal ordinations, 
 look to the same point ; as also those which provide for the trial of 
 Ministers by Ministers. {Con. Carth., can. '\\,apiid Beverigium.) 
 The Connexionalism of America is the same in principle with that of 
 the mother country, the great court of review and appeal being the 
 General Conference, which is placed in the same relation to the 
 subordinate Conferences as is the British Conference to the Districts. 
 In troubles which have arisen in the government of the Societies, 
 the AVesleyans would have deemed themselves happy if neighbom-ing 
 Christian churches had, with due candour, respected their acts of dis- 
 cipline ; but the circumstance that several of these churches have 
 thrown open their places of worship to persons cut off for contu- 
 macy, faction, and other violations of the New-Testament laws of 
 peace and purity, and have recognised and cherished their factions, is 
 one which has caused bitterest grief and astonishment ; and has 
 tended, more than anything else, to the dishonour of our common 
 "Christianity. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LAITY: THEIR INFLUENCE AND CO-WORKING. 
 
 " Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but 
 fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 
 and are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, 
 Jesus Christ Himself being the chief Corner-stone." — St. Paul. 
 
 § I. The mass of the people composing Christian 
 churches have unquestionably their distinct rights; 
 and Pastors, so far from infringing on those rights, are 
 placed in the church especially to maintain them. The 
 people cannot maintain them for themselves; for 
 they have a right, by virtue of their union with 
 Christ^ s flock, to a spiritual nurture and edification, 
 which no combination, vote, or election of their own, 
 could supply. Yet as they, as well as the Pastors, are, 
 accountable and subject to the Bishop of souls, their 
 claim to take a share in church action will be exactly 
 in proportion to the many or fewer particulars of 
 their responsibility to Him. So far as He requires 
 of them any special duty, so far they have a claim for 
 a free and unencumbered sphere in which to fulfil 
 that duty, fraught as it is, or followed, wdth its own 
 appropriate joy and reward. Whatever keeps them 
 out of this, is an usurped and unscriptural power; 
 but, beyond this general exposition of the term^ I have 
 no conception of individual, collective, or official 
 right in Christ's church, or any distinct portion of it. 
 Churches are not set up to please, or even serve, men, 
 
RIGHT TO RECOGNISE MINISTERS. 291 
 
 but to glorify God and extend His kingdom; and 
 where every one, whether in office or not, is a servant, 
 and must give account of himself to his Master, 
 " right^' can only mean a just position, where every 
 obligation can be met, and every benefit promised to 
 the individual be obtained, without the disturbance of 
 hindering restraints. 
 
 According to this view, the first clear and righteous 
 claim of the members of distinct churches is, to have 
 the opportunity of recognising and attesting the 
 Divine call of Ministers, so as to make this recog- 
 nition and attestation an indispensable condition of 
 their appointment. 
 
 It rests on such authority as this : — that they are 
 commanded to "beware of false Prophets;" (Matt, 
 vii. 15;) that the awful comminations of Peter and 
 Jude, the Apostles, against false teachers, are so many 
 impHed exhortations to avoid them ; that the Apostle 
 John requires of believers, giving them the criterion 
 to judge by, that they try the spirits whether they 
 be of God. Our Lord lays down the rule that such 
 are known by their fruits ; and, explained as this rule 
 is by the minuter teaching of His inspired exposi- 
 tors, a principle is declared, to the efi^ect that teachers, 
 or would-be teachers, who are void of the fruits of 
 holiness, and are palpably heretical in doctrine, are to 
 be shunned by all God^s people. This clearly involves 
 a right to exercise, prima facie, a common-sense 
 investigation, as to whether the candidate for the 
 ministry is a regenerate person, and holds the truth as 
 it is in Jesus, and possesses aU other marks of a 
 person called of God. If, in any sense, men are 
 called in Scripture to obey their Pastors, they justly 
 tj2 
 
292 EIGHT TO EECOGNISE MINISTERS. 
 
 demand to have an opportunity of acknowledging that 
 tJiey are Pastors, according to the will of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ : otherwise their obedience has not the 
 character of a reasonable and intelligent service. No 
 people exercise this right more fully than the 
 Wesleyans. The claims of a ministerial candidate are 
 not subjected to one congregation merely, but to 
 many ; for, as every Minister is regarded to be a 
 Minister in state, and not merely in place, a wider 
 attestation of the validity of those claims is neces- 
 sary. There is the suffrage of the congregations, 
 first, which he serves occasionally as a lay, or Local, 
 Preacher; then that of the congregations to which 
 he is regularly appointed as a candidate, or Preacher 
 on trial, extending over the varied Stations of four 
 years. Here disaffection on their part, or disqualifica- 
 tion on his, is almost certain to show itself; and all 
 23ersons acquainted with the practical working of the 
 Wesleyan economy, know how many there are who 
 fail and disappear in this process, and are heard of in 
 public life no more. 
 
 The Church of England acknowledges this popular 
 right in theory, and makes provision that the Bishop, 
 previous to ordaining the candidate, shall challenge 
 the people to say, whether there is any crime or 
 impediment to be alleged against him ; and, in case of 
 such allegation, requires the Bishop to ^^ surcease" 
 from ordaining : yet, unhappily, no caveat is ever pre- 
 sented, however disqualified or unspiritual the person 
 to be ordained; for, when other portions of disci- 
 pline are lost, it is of small avail to enforce this 
 item. 
 
 § II. Another right of the people, which, though 
 
SECURITY AGAINST MISRULE. 293 
 
 not directly stated, jet may be inferred from Scrip- 
 ture, is, that they possess security against misrule, 
 and especially against hasty and prejudiced decisions, 
 on the part of the Pastor. 
 
 It is founded on such considerations as these : — 
 that they are commanded, not jointly with him to 
 institute, but to concur with, and give practical effect 
 to, those decisions, whether inflicting censure or 
 separation, as in the following places : — 
 
 *' If he neglect to hear the church, let him " (the 
 offending brother) " be unto thee as an Heathen man 
 and a pubHcan." (Matt, xviii. 17.) "If any man 
 obey not our word by this Epistle, note that man, and 
 have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. 
 Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him 
 as a brother.'' (2 Thess. iii. 14, 15.) "Mark them 
 which cause divisions and offences contrary to the 
 doctrine wliich ye have learned ; and avoid them. For 
 they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 but their own belly; and by good words and fair 
 speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. For your 
 obedience is come abroad unto all men." (Rom. xvi. 
 17-19.) " But now I have written unto you, not to 
 keep company, if any man that is called a brother be 
 a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or 
 a drunkard, or an extortioner ; with such an one no 
 not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them 
 also which are without? do not ye judge them that 
 are within ? But them that are without God judgeth. 
 Therefore put away from among yourselves that 
 wicked person." (1 Cor. v. 11-13.) 
 
 Men who are thus laid under the obligation of 
 renouncing Christian communion with fallen or un- 
 
294 PEIVILEGE PROPORTIONED TO KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 governable members^ have then, as we may reasonably 
 infer, some claim to such provisions as shall make 
 the pastoral acts or decisions affecting those members 
 appeal to the understanding and conscience of the 
 many ; so that the censure which may be awarded to 
 an erring brother, shall be, however adjudged, a 
 punislunent "inflicted of many." These provisions, 
 which are chiefly framed to bring out the judgment 
 and verdict of the laity, on any special case of accu- 
 sation brought against one of their own number, must 
 be adapted — so a scripturally-enlightened reason would 
 dictate — to the different degrees of piety and intelli- 
 gence which may be found in different circles of 
 laity. Every one would make a distinction between 
 a congregation of Kaffirs, and one composed of 
 well-informed Englislimen ; and, while ruling the one 
 with a resolute fatherly will, as being conscious of 
 knowing far better than they, would be most anxious 
 to act, in the case of the other, so as to carry with 
 him the convictions and acquiescence of the rest, or of 
 the majority. Between these two extremes, however, 
 there are various degrees, calKng for Christian wisdom 
 to interfere in the application of the principle; but 
 one thing is absolute and clear, that these provisions 
 in question, while they soHcit and seek for the collec- 
 tive opinion and concurrence of the church, or of the 
 specially wise and good members of it, stop short of 
 placing those members in a position of co-adminis- 
 tration with the proper spiritual Overseer or Euler. 
 His singular and official responsibility, as we shall see 
 hereafter, remains unlessened, and cannot be shared 
 either with five or with five hundred. 
 
 § III. Against this it is objected by some, that, in 
 
MA'IT. XVIII. 16, 17, EXAMINED. 295 
 
 two places of Scripture especially, acts of censure 
 and excommunication seem not only to be inflicted, 
 but adjudicated, by the whole community; that is, 
 both Pastors and laity being assessors in the case. 
 The first is Matt, xviii. 16, 17 ; the other, 1 Cor. v., 
 et seq. A brief examination of these places, how- 
 ever, will show how little there is even seeming to 
 bear on any such conclusion. 
 
 The first need not take much time. It has been 
 shown already, in the second chapter, that when our 
 Lord says, " Tell it unto the church," by the eKKkr^aLa, 
 so far as He spoke anticipativel}^. He must have 
 meant the church in any place, as it was to be here- 
 after constituted under the dispensation of the Spirit ; 
 because, during His own ministry. He was the sole 
 and supreme Judge of all questions arising among 
 His disciples : and the whole of the preceding pages, 
 from the second chapter to the present, have exhi- 
 bited the impressions made upon our understanding 
 as to the character of its constitutions, especially so 
 far as involving this particular, — that, as its Overseers 
 and Rulers were directly called of God, and placed 
 under peculiar and so far unshared obligations to 
 Him, so their deliberating, deciding, and acting were 
 to be proportionately diflerent from the same exercises 
 in the laity. 
 
 Whether a church be a single congregation, or an 
 aggregate of congregations, does not afiect the present 
 point; for, as families are said in Holy Scripture 
 to do what the parents, through their being at the 
 head of the domestic constitution, do ; (1 Chron. iv. 
 2; Jer. x. 25 ; Zech. xii. 12-14, et alibi;) and as a 
 nation is said likewise to do what is done by its 
 
296 ADMINISTEATORS llEPRESENT COMMUNITY. 
 
 Princes and official persons^ civil or military, tlirougli 
 their representing the whole estate of the realm ; 
 (Isai. ii. 4 ; Jer. ii. 11 ; vii. 28, et alibi;) so a church 
 may be said to do what is formally and actually done 
 by its constituted organs, especially if these organs 
 are set up by the authority, and qualified by the 
 gifts, of the Holy Spirit. No doubt, wise fathers 
 will always consult their wives and children, and wise 
 Governors their people, according to the wisdom and 
 knowledge there may be in each case to appeal to ; 
 but still the act of the administration is held to be, in 
 the common language of all nations, as well as of all 
 Scripture, the act of the community. But, after all, 
 the case of an offending or scandalising brother is 
 not one which at all applies to the question of eccle- 
 siastical trials, where guilt or innocence has to be 
 investigated; or to the question as to who are the 
 proper Judges in such trial. Those who here erect 
 the whole church into a court or community of equal 
 triers, to decide the case by a majority of suffrages, 
 build upon a baseless assumption. The offence is a 
 wrong and injury inflicted upon a brother, involving 
 alienation between the offender and complainant; it 
 is not a matter for inquiry and investigation, but a 
 breach of known and acknowledged law, and, of course, 
 involving sin : the offender spurns all private remon- 
 strances and attempts at reconcihation ; then the 
 facts are to be made known to the church, through 
 the organic medium which is appointed for receiving 
 and dealing with such communications ; and then, if 
 impenitence still continue, every individual is com- 
 manded to join in giving effect to the sentence by 
 wliich he is separated from the rest. 
 
INCESTUOUS coRI^'THIA^^ 297 
 
 The passage is full to the point, that all censures 
 and exclusions are to be managed fairly and openly, 
 \nthout any sinister or veiled proceedings ; and that 
 the obligations enforcing these censures should rest 
 on pal])able and acknowledged violations of law : but 
 to say that the people, as a whole, take part in the 
 primary administration, — this is a matter not only 
 absent from the text, but is opposed by all known 
 analogies, Jewish and Christian, which crowd around 
 the question. And if the whole community here 
 were, what we cannot allow it to be, a community 
 of Judges, this text, even in that case, would not 
 affirm the finality of its sentence : for, as the Jew 
 who heard our Lord would be well aware that an 
 appeal might lie from his congregation or syna- 
 gogue to the council of Elders, so the disciple of 
 Christ could have no assurance, but that so it might 
 be hereafter with reference to decisions in his own 
 church. 
 
 § IV. The case of the incestuous Corinthian, how- 
 ever, has been deemed by some more to the point. 
 
 It is here urged by our bretliren who advocate the 
 popular form of chui'ch order, that while St. Paul 
 used his own apostolical wisdom in this case, and 
 communicated his view of it in his Epistle, he so 
 conducted the expulsion as to make it, not conse- 
 quentially merely, but formally and administratively, 
 the act of the whole church ; inasmuch as he reserved 
 the excision to the moment when they were gathered 
 together with his spirit, and " the power of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ;" (1 Cor. v. 4;) and, besides this, 
 appealed to them in these words, " ^Hiat have I to do 
 to judge them also that are without ? do not ye judge 
 
298 INCESTUOUS COEINTHIAN. 
 
 tliem that are within?" (Yerse 12.) With regard to 
 the first point, there is nothing in the anticipated 
 gathering of the Corinthians together, which neces- 
 sarily implies their assessorsliip with the Apostle in 
 the matter. The offence was open and known ; for 
 the church was '^puffed up/' that is, inflated with 
 speculative opinions, by which they sought to sophis- 
 ticate and excuse the crime ; and thus, instead of its 
 being a cause of humiliation, they made it an occasion 
 of reflecting favourably upon their intellectual pride. 
 As the sin was open, so it was needful the rebuke 
 should be, and also sufliciently solemn to disturb the 
 apathy of all the members. " Them that sin,'' said 
 St. Paul to Timothy, " rebuke before all, that others 
 also may fear." (1 Tim. v. 20.) This, in the absence 
 of an accuser or complainant, was telling the matter 
 to the church, in the manner required by our Lord ; 
 and, as the private members had connived at the 
 sin, and given no reproving utterance at all, the 
 Apostle spake with final and decisive authority, say- 
 ing, " For I verily, as absent in bod}^, but present in 
 spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, 
 him that hath so done tliis deed." (1 Cor. v. 3.) That 
 is, the Apostle in his Master's name, without waiting 
 for the action of the laity, who, indeed, by their con- 
 nivance in the sin had taken the other side, decided 
 the issue and the sentence at once, in order to vindi- 
 cate his Master's law of purity. Is it likely that he 
 would have summoned them together, as co-adminis- 
 trators in reference to the infliction or othermse of 
 the sentence of expulsion, when he had to arouse 
 them from their sleep of antinomian pride and 
 security, by his exposition of the law of Christ ? It 
 
INCESTUOUS CORINTHIAN. 299 
 
 has been affirmed that the Apostle, in the first verse, 
 reproves them for not having done before, what he 
 now required them to do ; namely, to put away from 
 themselves that wicked person : and from this the 
 inference has been drawn, that the community, as 
 such, were jointly and equally chargeable with the 
 previous obligation to exclude him. Such an infer- 
 ence, however, cannot be fairly drawn from the words of 
 the Apostle. They are reproved for not having mournedy 
 that is, on account of the common contamination 
 which they suffered, and ha — "to the end that" — 
 the person " might be taken away -." for the mourning 
 of the private members, had it taken place, would have 
 appealed to those among them who had a fatherly or 
 pastoral relation to the rest, whose special obligation 
 it was, by virtue of that relation, to see the Divine 
 law revered and executed ; and if these were apathetic 
 and immovable, then it cannot be doubted it was 
 the duty of every individual to avoid, that is, vir- 
 tually put away, such a man, even mthout a church 
 decision. "Put away from yourselves," does not 
 necessarily mean, "Deliberate and adjudicate upon 
 him;" but, as verse 11 explains, "Do not keep com- 
 pany with, associate with, or recognise liim." 
 
 It has also been asked. Why, on the supposition 
 that the Elders were intrusted with the enforcement 
 of Clu:isf s discipline, did not St. Paul, in this matter, 
 address himself to the Pastors and Elders, rather 
 than to the church ? The answer is not difficult. If 
 there were regularly settled Pastors at the time this 
 Epistle was written, they must have been powerless, 
 and their office nugatory, from the state of confusion 
 and schism which then existed ; that is, if they were 
 
300 
 
 INCESTUOUS CORINTHIAN. 
 
 not themselves corrupted^ and sympathisers with the 
 accused and guilty individual. In the scope and 
 order of his Pirst Epistle he observes, that there were 
 "contentions^^ among them; every eminent admi- 
 nistrator of baptism having been regarded as a cen- 
 tral person around whom others might rally. This 
 circumstance made Paul thankful that here, at least, 
 he had not been in more than one or two instances a 
 baptizer. (1 Cor. i. 11-14.) He could not speak unto 
 them " as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal ; " for there 
 was among them " envying, and strife, and divisions." 
 (iii. 2, 3.) Then follows his direction to church-builders, 
 how to edify or set up the sacred structure. In a 
 beautiful figure, which. Dr. Wardlaw justly argues, 
 may apply quite as well to the formation of a church, 
 that is, the building up of its constituent materials, 
 as to the selection and guardianship of its doctrines, 
 the Apostle exhorts all who follow him to take care 
 how they proceed ; not to use wood, hay, and stubble, 
 instead of gold, silver, and precious stones ; which is 
 the same thing as warning them not to have corrupt 
 members introduced or held in the Christian society, 
 who might endanger its stability, and render it an 
 object for the offended justice of God in the day of 
 fiery trial. So far the Ministers, then, j^ro tempore, 
 of the church of Corinth were addressed, whether 
 they were Prophets, Teachers, or what else ; and espe- 
 cially under this strain of expression, which includes 
 all who should follow them : " I have laid the found- 
 ation, and another buildeth thereon : but let eveiy 
 man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. ''' (iii. 10.) 
 So far, I say, they are warned to put away the unholy, 
 in the prosecution of their own peculiar work (not 
 
INCESTUOUS CORINTHIAN. 801 
 
 the people's ; for the people are the materials) of build- 
 ing up the church. As to the entire society^ they are 
 required to separate themselves, that is, to renounce 
 companionship with a guilty man, one known to be 
 guilty, who had not yet been excommunicated by 
 ministerial sentence. 
 
 § V. It is believed by Dr. Davidson and others, 
 that in Corinth at this time there were no settled 
 Elders and Pastors, but that the church was in its 
 "nascenf state. This is not an improbable 
 opinion; for, supposing this Epistle to be written 
 about A.D. 59, it could not have been more than 
 three or four years since the Gospel had been intro- 
 duced there by Paul and Apollos. It is not, how- 
 ever, of any great importance to either side of the 
 argument : for, if there were Elders, and they con- 
 tinued on the whole faithful, their united action must 
 have been rendered impossible by the broken state 
 of the church : and if there were none, and the lack 
 of pastoral teaching was supplied by persons possessing 
 various charismata; (gifts which the Apostle lightly 
 esteemed in comparison with love;) or, what is more 
 likely still, — considering the tenor of the eleventh 
 chapter of the Second Epistle, — if those who claimed 
 and held the office of the ministry were such as the 
 Apostle could not recognise, — were "false Apostles," 
 "deceitful workers ; " then the decisive course adopted 
 by him only shows, that when office-bearers and people 
 are alike guilty, rather than " the unity of the Spirit 
 in the bond of peace" be violated, or the purity 
 of the Gospel remain unvindicated, a pastoral autho- 
 rity from without, whether Episcopal, Connexional, or 
 whatever be its form, must interfere to do what the 
 
302 INCESTUOUS CORINTHIAN. 
 
 authorities on the spot ought to have done, or, 
 taking another supposition, could not do. Some of 
 these false Ministers had actual power over the Corin- 
 thians, even to the exacting of contributions to their 
 temporal support, — a power which these people, so 
 long as their Teachers flattered them, recognised and 
 submitted to. Thus St. Paul asks, " If others have 
 been partakers of ["^J power over you, are not we 
 rather ? Nevertheless we have not used this power/' 
 (1 Cor. ix. V2.) Prom the hands of men of this 
 order, he could not expect the administration of pure 
 discipline; and therefore he at once disallows their 
 claim to office, and acts in contravention of their 
 apathy. 
 
 After expounding the figure of the building, in 
 which the part of Pastors is, as we have seen, explained, 
 the Apostle next vindicates his spiritual authority, as 
 the nurturing father of the community; he then 
 declares his judgment of the incestuous person, and 
 acts decisively himself in harmony with the law of 
 Christ, — puts away the hay and stubble from the gold 
 and silver, — and demands their concurrence in the 
 judgment, and their share in its execution. Could any 
 process of thought be more consecutive or natural ? 
 
 § VI. The appeal of verse 12 has, however, yet to 
 be examined: "Do ye not judge them that are 
 within?^' Here it is asked. Does not the Apostle 
 leave it to be implied, that all persons in the church 
 form one common tribunal in this case ? In answer 
 to this, it must be observed, that there is hardly a 
 
 * The word "this," not being represented in the Greckj is omitted 
 here, as rather weakening the sense. 
 
IXCESTTOUS COmXTHIAX. 303 
 
 verb ill the T^ew Testament which has a greater 
 variety of significations than Kpivco, — these varjdng 
 meanings often occurring in the closest vicinity to 
 each other. It means, ^Ho sue at law/^ (Matt. v. 
 40 ;) "to form an opinion after dehberation ; " (Luke 
 vii. 43;) "to resolve;^'' (Acts iii. 13;) "to con- 
 demn ; ■" (John iii. 17;) "to institute/' or " ordain;" 
 (Acts x\d. 4;) "to decree;"' (1 Cor. vii. 37;) as well 
 as " authoritatively to administer law/' &c. 
 
 The exact import of the word, therefore, in any 
 particular case, must be determined by the position and 
 circumstances of the party using it. If a child judge, 
 it is the expression of a not very weighty opinion ; if 
 a father, it is the rule of the household ; if a friend, 
 who is appealed to, it is a concurrent suffrage; if 
 God judge, it is law absolute, and of necessity to be 
 executed ; and so forth. 
 
 Now in this case we know accurately what is meant 
 by the Apostle's judging : it is the firm determination 
 to dehver such a one to Satan, for the destruction 
 of the flesh; that is, to cast him again into the 
 broad and bad domain of the world, — Satan's king- 
 dom, — and perhaps afflict him with disease in addition; 
 that he might haply become so affected with the dif- 
 ference between the heritage of God's people, and the 
 distractions and miseries of the unregenerate, as to 
 deplore his fall, and seek for reconciliation; and 
 thus, by God's discipline, in connexion with grace, 
 (includhig, in such discipHne, the effect of disease in 
 reducing the physical appetencies to sin,) might have 
 the flesh destroyed, and the spirit saved everlastingly. 
 To judge, I say, in the Apostle's case, was to decide 
 and act thus, even as in the case of Hymenseus and 
 
304 INCESTUOUS CORINTHIAN. 
 
 Alexander, mentioned in 1 Tim. i. 20, where he like- 
 wise appears to be sole Judge ; and as this was done 
 apart from the deliberations of the rest, then "to 
 judge," on the part of the rest, can only be to concur 
 with, and act upon, his decision ; so that the whole 
 procedure, to use the words of Erasmus, should be 
 "ex Pauli decreto, ex muUitudinis consensu, ex auc- 
 toritate Christi/' This view is strengthened by the 
 necessary import of verses 2 and 3 of the following 
 chapter, where St. Paul asks, in allusion to their 
 appealing to Heathen courts, in settlement of their 
 temporal disputes, rather than to Christian arbitra- 
 tion, " Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the 
 world ? Know ye not that we shall judge angels ? '* 
 In what sense, we may ask, is it true that good men 
 shall do this ? by assisting to decide upon the indivi- 
 dual doom of worldly men and wicked angels at the 
 day of doom ? The thought is shocking : this is the 
 sole prerogative of Christ, the Judge of quick and 
 dead. The saints, on hearing His decision, can only 
 give, from a sense of its righteousness, their solemn 
 and emphatic "Amen:" this is their part of the 
 judgment. The argument involved is from the greater 
 to the less : as the saints concur in the sentence of the 
 absolute and final Judge, when the world receives its 
 sentence, so the Corinthians, in the case just dis- 
 cussed, are required to concur in the decision of the 
 Apostle founded on His law : nor would the sentence 
 have been reversed or altered, had they stiU remained 
 contumacious. And as St. Paul passes from the 
 subject of sins against God to matters of dispute 
 and litigation in temporal things, his argument, with 
 perfect consistency, runs thus ; " If ye, being found 
 
INCESTUOUS CORINTHIAN. 305 
 
 finally saints of God, shall have this dignity con- 
 ferred on you, of acquiescing with Christ in the 
 coudemnation of evil men and angels, shall you 
 not be deemed competent to take a similar part in 
 judicial matters relating to things of tliis life ? and, if 
 so, set them to judge or arbitrate, who are practically, 
 by your present conduct, ol e^ovOevrnjuevoi, set at 
 nought and despised ? ' I speak to your shame. Is 
 it so, that there is not a wise man among you ? no, 
 not ONE that shall be able to judge between his 
 brethren/ (1 Cor. vi. 3-5;) not one primary arbi- 
 trator, whose decision others may agree in and con- 
 firm ? " By these wise men, who were thus apt to 
 resolve litigated questions, there is little doubt the 
 " governments'^ mentioned in verse 28 of the twelfth 
 chapter are to be understood. 
 
 IVIoreover, the democratic theory is disproved by 
 the terms in which St. Paul reflects upon the subject 
 in his Second Epistle. He refers to the punishment 
 being " inflicted,''^ not the adjudication as being insti- 
 tuted, ^^of many;" inasmuch as the concurrence of 
 the Corinthians in the Apostle's sentence had been 
 obtained, and made a blessing to the individual. In 
 the meantime, as appears from 1 Cor. iv. 17, Timo- 
 theus was sent to them, to bring to their remem- 
 brance the Apostle's ways which were in Christ, as he 
 taught everywhere in every church; under the mild 
 and settling administration of which Timothy, and 
 of Titus, who came also, it would appear that the 
 schism was for a wliile healed, the m.an brought to 
 repentance and re-admitted, and, to a good extent, 
 peace restored. The Epistle exhorts the Corinthians 
 to forgive the awakened penitent, inasmuch as his 
 
 X 
 
806 INCESTUOUS CORINTHIAJN'. 
 
 offence, by covering the wliole communion with shame, 
 had injured them all; but the Apostle himself, who 
 had been in a different position from them, and had 
 not sustained this kind of injury, writes, as the 
 Minister and servant of Jesus Christ, thus : " Tor to 
 this end also did I write, that I might know the 
 proof of you, whether ye be obedient in all things. 
 To whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also : for if I 
 forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes 
 forgave I it in the person^^ (or " presence,^^ or "sight^^) 
 " of Christ ; lest Satan should get an advantage of us." 
 (2 Cor. ii. 9-11.) Thus the forgiveness granted by 
 those who had been scandalised, and that granted by 
 the Apostle, were as different as were the spiritual 
 relations to Christ of the parties respectively. That of 
 the people was the restoration of the penitent to 
 their confidence and company; that of the Apostle, 
 his restoration to church-privileges : and, upon the 
 whole, the tone of the Apostle''s address to this 
 church, in both of his Epistles, is that of a spiritual 
 father appealing to the intelligent and confiding obe- 
 dience of those who were indebted to him, and his 
 companions in toil, for everything they had of Gospel 
 hope, requiring their concurrence with his acts ; not 
 that of a defender of communistic will ; inasmuch as 
 we find him maintaining the truth and order of 
 Clmst, whether they concurred or not. The closing 
 verses of the Epistle are all in proof of this. 
 
 Such is the bearing of tliis oft- quoted transaction 
 upon the subject of controversy ; and, if it be not in 
 agreement with the doctrine hitherto advocated, and 
 yet to be advocated, in these pages, then a hopeless 
 intricacy and confusion surrounds the whole subject. 
 
INCESTUOUS CORINTHIAN. 307 
 
 such, indeed, as no reverential mind could attribute to 
 that book which claims to be a revelation from God. 
 
 Beside the two places now examined, I know of 
 no portions of Scripture which are adduced in support 
 of popular church-government, — except it be that 
 some writers refer to the occasional use of the plural 
 immber in Clirist^s charge to the seven churches of 
 Asia ; such as, " The devil shall cast some of you into 
 prison/'' "That which ye have hold fast till I come;^' 
 and thence infer that obligations are here spread 
 equally over all the members. But still, unless the 
 Angel be got rid of, nothing is gained on this side, 
 however the precepts enjoined are tlirough him made 
 appHcable to the people. 
 
 Vi^e here discuss the matter so far as it affects the 
 laity; though it must be manifest that one part of 
 the subject involves the other, just as the convexity of 
 a curve hue involves a corresponding concavity on the 
 other side. If the rights and privileges of the people 
 be described with any accuracy of limit, so far we 
 assert negatively what the obligations of the ministry 
 are. These last, however, will come under particular 
 survey in another place ; so that we may now make 
 the summary statement of doctrine on our present 
 point, which is this : — That it may be inferred from 
 Scripture, that the brethren, the laity of every Chris- 
 tian church, by themselves, or by their representa- 
 tives, have a right to such a share in affirming the 
 guilt or innocence of parties who are tried by the law 
 of Christ, or by a law of fellowship, mutually acknow- 
 ledged, wliich appeals to it, as to make the execution 
 of censure declared by the Pastor, or its removal, 
 to be in an intelligent sense the act of the whole 
 
308 APPOINTING OFFICE-BE A.EEIIS. 
 
 body."^ The number of persons sharing in such pro- 
 cedure is never defined in Scripture : and_, as long 
 as there are children, young men, and fathers, the 
 ignorant and the well-informed, the rude and the cul- 
 tivated, to be provided for by the same Christianity, 
 and often in the same place ; it is, a prioTi, impossible 
 to suppose that the Scripture should define it. It is 
 one of those conditions which grow out of a pre- 
 vious relation ; insomuch that, while the party who is 
 chiefly responsible to Clirist must be able to meet 
 the obligations of that responsibility, without having 
 his hands fettered, all influence beneath his own must 
 depend upon the degree in which the claimant is a 
 receiver or giver, a person enjoying or conferring a 
 benefit. 
 
 § YII. Another particular in which lay -influence 
 and co-working are claimed, has respect to the 
 appointment of office-bearers. 
 
 Here, too, as before, we are left to infer the extent to 
 which this influence should be exercised, from general 
 and admitted principles ; rather than exactly to mark 
 its limits ; though we are emboldened to state at once, 
 in order to open out this part of the question, that 
 no clear case appears in Scripture, in which the con- 
 sent of the community was ahsoliitely requisite to tlie 
 appointment of Minister, Deacon, or any other official 
 person in the Christian society. A Christian who is 
 called from the private ranks of membership to 
 
 * Calvin, who, on the ground of Paul's procedure, objects to the 
 doctrine of one man exercising the function of excommunication, as 
 in the Church of Rome, denies, at the same time, that the right 
 resides in every individual, and gives it to the body of Elders. — 
 " Commentary," in loc. 
 
APPOINTING OFnCE-BEAEEPvS. 309 
 
 fulfil spiritual or economical tasks^ is one who takes 
 up a delegated duty, the authority for fulfilling 
 A\liicli_, to use the figure of St. Paul, so beautifidly 
 developed in Ephesians iv., flows down to him from 
 the Head, through the medium of those who are next 
 higher. This is the descending scale, as marked by 
 apostohcal authority : first, Christ, who is over all ; 
 then Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors; then 
 Deacons, and all who fill up what is behind of minis- 
 terial service ; then the common company of believers : 
 so that official authority does not proceed from the 
 feet vjncarcls, hvX from the Head doiiiiwards s"^ and, 
 in order to keep this principle in its integrity, it 
 is needfid that the appointment to office, whether 
 diaconal or of any other kind, should be formally and 
 really that of the Pastor, as being in harmony with 
 pastoral aims and purposes. Still it is evident that, 
 in a free and spiritual society, these appointments 
 must have the respect and confidence of the members 
 of that society, otherwise they will fail of their efl'ect ; 
 and here lies the necessity of making some provision 
 for testing that confidence, or checking the rash or 
 prejudiced acts of some possibly declining or unwise 
 Pastor. And again : as these persons so appointed 
 are generally obliged to labour in conjunction with 
 others in the very same functions, and are, besides. 
 
 * Bishop Peakson : " Tola potestas spiritualis non redundat a 
 popido ad Clenim, seda Clero derivatur adjiopulum: non a domo, sed 
 pro domo Levi, accepit virgam Jaron ; non a popido, sed bono 
 populist institutio Ministri ; non ah hominibus, neque per homines, 
 sed a Christo Sanctus Paulus Apostolus ; no7i a pop)ulo, neque per 
 populum, sed a Deo per S. Paulum Titus Ejnscopus." — " jNliuor 
 Theological Works," vol. ii., Coucio vi., p. 74. Oxou. 1844. 
 
310 CASE OF MATTHIAS. 
 
 brouglit into co-deliberation with them, it is but an 
 application of the same principle, to say, that those 
 who are abeacly in office, ought to have the oppor- 
 tunity afforded them of objecting, should any ground 
 of objection in the matter of unfitness or unspirituahty 
 lie, to any proposed person, and to the confirmation 
 of his official appointments ; and, vice versa, likewise 
 .the opportunity of giving or withholding a verdict as 
 to any fault or disqualification, tlu'ough the occur- 
 rence of which the office might be subsequently taken 
 away. Thus arises the reasonable claim of Cliristian 
 office-bearers, as far from a democratical authority and 
 demand, as the pastoral is from absolutism. 
 
 § YIII. But let us now sustain the position by a 
 reference to the New Testament. 
 
 The first instance adduced in support of the popular 
 theory, is the appointment of Matthias to the vacant 
 apostleship; (Acts i. 15-26;) where it is urged that 
 ALL the disciples, being addressed by Peter, " appointed 
 two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed 
 Justus, and Matthias ;^^ and then prayed, and then 
 " gave forth their lots " in order to the ultimate deci- 
 sion; and therefore all had equal influence in the 
 matter. 
 
 In reply to this, it must be observed, in the first 
 place, that it is by no means certain that the pronoun 
 ^^they," inverse 23, — "And the?/ appointed two,^' — 
 refers to all the disciples : it is, at least, as proper to 
 refer it to the Apostles alone, and for such reasons as 
 these : — 
 
 rirst, it is of the twelve that Peter is speaking 
 throughout, when he says, first referring to Judas, 
 " He was numbered with us," (as being one of the 
 
CASE OF MATTHIAS. 311 
 
 twelve: tlie others were not numbered,) "and had 
 obtained part of this ministry." " AYherefore of these 
 men" — the disciples ''which have companied with 
 us," &c. — "must one be ordained to be a witness of 
 His resurrection." Peter is appealing to his fellow- 
 Apostles in respect of men who had companied with 
 tliem, and were then present; therefore, when the 
 narrative proceeds, and says, "And they appointed 
 two," it is natural enough to understand that by the 
 word "they," the party immediately appealed to, on 
 the point just mentioiied, the Apostles, is meant. 
 Besides, if we were to concede that this is doubtful, 
 it would be a fair rule of interpretation to explain 
 this place by all other places where appointments to 
 office are spoken of; and then, reserving the case of 
 the seven Deacons for separate consideration, the fact 
 is not doubtful, as we shall have occasion to see, that, 
 whoever might take a concurring part, the Apostles 
 or Evangelists themselves appointed. Several " clear 
 texts " are always allowed to turn the testimony of a 
 doubtful one on their side. 
 
 Next, it is but congruous that they who were most 
 concerned to fill up the vacant place in this ministry 
 and apostleship, rather than tlie whole body of dis- 
 ciples, should be regarded as identical with the " they " 
 who prayed on the occasion and cast lots, inasmuch 
 as Peter's very phraseology is preserved in the peti- 
 tion : indeed, in any view of the case, a portion only 
 of the whole company can have engaged in the act ; 
 for on solemn religious occasions Jewish women did 
 not cast lots. 
 
 In another point of view, likewise, this place would 
 ill suit the theory which it is quoted to serve; for 
 
312 CASE OF MATTHIAS. 
 
 the whole body of disciples^ the one hundred and 
 twenty who were here, would, exclusive of the women, 
 be nearly made up of those who had received a 
 ministerial commission from Christ, and would fall 
 far short of the actual number of Christian believers 
 then existing ; for Christ had been seen of five hun- 
 dred brethren in Galilee at once. The seventy dis- 
 ciples who had been sent out two and two, and whose 
 commission had not ceased, as is evident from our 
 Lord^s renewal to them of His promises after their 
 return, (Luke x. 19,) being present with the Apo- 
 stles, — a supposition far more likely than otherwdse, 
 seeing they were sent to the lost sheep of the house 
 of Israel, rather than to Galilee or Samaria, — the 
 assembly in the upper room at Jerusalem would be 
 anything but a popular assembly, in the modern sense 
 of that expression, and their decision anything but 
 the result of a popular resolution. Indeed, the matter 
 was so fully committed into the hands of God, not- 
 withstanding the nomination of two by the twelve, 
 that all human wisdom and authority were renounced, 
 as was most fitting, in asking for an Apostle, — a 
 special messenger of Christ, — and the matter was 
 entirely left with the Searcher of hearts. Their 
 prayer was not for direction how to choose, but for a 
 revelation as to fact, as to whom God had chosen; 
 and they adopted that method to ascertain the Divine 
 will, which had been so often sanctioned in the history 
 of their nation. In a word, when this passage is 
 fully and impartially examined, it will be found to 
 yield no testimony in favour of constituting church- 
 ofiicers by the authority of the whole congregation ; its 
 teaching tends in the opposite direction : and, indeed. 
 
CHOOSING DEACO>'S. 313 
 
 if it were otherwise, the Congregational principle 
 would here be equally impugned ; for the congregation 
 at Jerusalem would then appoint a person whose 
 authority as an Apostle must be recognised in any 
 other, in Galilee, Samaria, or elsewhere. 
 
 § IX. The next case usually adduced is that of the 
 choosing the seven Deacons of Jerusalem. The argu- 
 ment is mainly the same : namely, that the multitude 
 of the disciples is called together ; the matter is laid 
 before them; they ^Mook out^^ or choose the indi- 
 viduals, and therefore the appointment is that of the 
 whole community. Plausible as this conclusion may 
 seem, it is one-sided and unsound. Let it be granted 
 that the word i^eXe^avro has its full sense, "they 
 chose ; " — for it cannot with consistency be softened, 
 or made to mean anything less than a real election, 
 founded on previous deliberation and comparison; — 
 still, the disciples did this in obedience to a ministerial 
 suggestion and requirement. The Apostles themselves 
 had in the first place the care of the widows, but 
 they desired to be relieved of this service : the plan 
 originated with themselves, and was devised as being 
 in harmony with that system of truth, in its far- 
 reaching consequences, which it was their charge to 
 establish and maintain, and with the future opera- 
 tions of Christ's church in the world. The wisdom 
 of the disciples had nothing to do with its origination, 
 but it was needful that they should concur in it ; and 
 as they in a body supplied the funds which were to be 
 distributed, so it was necessary they should have con- 
 fidence in the brethren to whom the work of distri- 
 bution, with whatever other duty it might involve, 
 was confided. Following the direction which the 
 
314 CHOOSING DEACONS. 
 
 Apostles gave tliem, as to the sort of persons tliey 
 should select, they chose Stephen and six others ; yet 
 they did not choose or appoint Deacons, but persons 
 whom the Apostles were to appoint or vnake Deacons. 
 " Look ye out, " said the twelve, " seven men whom 
 WE MAY APPOINT ovcr tliis busiucss ; " and these per- 
 sons they set before the Apostles, who, when they 
 had prayed, laid their hands upon them, and they were 
 appointed accordingly. Had the proposal arisen from 
 the people, or had they taken primary part in the exe- 
 cution of it, the transaction would then have assumed 
 a popular form ; but it did not so arise : or had they 
 decided, likewise, any of the qualifications for the 
 office ', but they did not so decide : or had they taken 
 part in the appointing act; but they did not take 
 such part. They concurred in the proposal, and 
 found out the persons described ; and, as fellow-citizens 
 in the kingdom of lieaven, and on principles of natural 
 justice, they had a right, so far, to judge in this case ; 
 inasmuch as by confiding to these persons the appor- 
 tioning of their contributions and charities, they 
 ceded to them a portion of their own individual 
 responsibihty, and required to have, on that account, 
 knowledge and approval of their personal character. 
 There was not a Ministers^ side and a people's side 
 on this question : it were an anomaly to regard these 
 seven as a popular counterpoise against the pastorate, 
 when they were instituted to relieve the pastorate. 
 It was not a choice of church Rulers and Teachers, 
 but of church assistants. All this saved the principle 
 of lay acquiescence ; and the authoritative appointing 
 act of the Apostles saved the other principle akeady 
 mentioned and defended, — an implied doctrine which 
 
CHOOSING DEACONS. 313 
 
 runs tlirougli the Scriptures ; namely, that the right 
 to minister in the congregation comes down from the 
 Head of the church, tlu:ough the medium — or, in 
 certain cases, with the simple acquiescence — of those 
 who occupy the more responsible position. How else 
 should Paul say to Timothy, (1 Tim. iii. 15,) after he 
 had given him directions as to the qualifications of 
 Deacons, and how to select them, "These things^' 
 (that is, respecting Deacons) " I wTite imto thee, 
 hoping to come to thee shortly ; but if I tarry long, that 
 thou mayest know," avaarpecjieaOai, "how to occupy 
 thyself in the church of God."*^ How was Timothy 
 concerned to do this, if the churches absolutely ori- 
 ginated whom they would ? Here, again, let one place 
 cast its light upon another, and let us not be afraid of 
 too much illumination."^ In the case before us, the 
 
 * Cj'prian, who, in places torn from tlieir connexion, has often 
 been quoted in favour of popular- suffrage, says very clearly : " Memi- 
 nisse autem Diaconi dehent quoniam Apostolos, id est, Episcopos et 
 Prapositos, Bominus elegit ; Biaconos autem post ascensum Domini 
 ill ccelos Apostoli sibi constituerunt episcopatus std et ecclesice 
 Ilinistros" ^c. "The Deacons ought to remember, that our 
 Lord chose His Apostles, that is, Bishops and Rulers ; but the 
 Apostles for themselves, after His ascension into heaven, constituted 
 the Deacons to be the jVlinisters of the chm*ch and of the episcopate." 
 With much more to the same effect. — Opera, Oxon., 1682, Epist. 
 iii., p. 6. 
 
 Dr. Davidson thinks that because ■^;ue?s is not prefixed to Kara- 
 CT-qa-ofjiiv, wliilc it is inserted before TrpoaKapTeprfcroixcu, the sense 
 will run thus: "We (Apostles and brethren) may appoint, but we 
 (Apostles alone) will continue in prayer," &c. But instances are not 
 wanting in the New Testament, where, in the same passage, there is 
 a personal pronoun inserted, and a personal pronoun understood, and 
 both have exactly the same value and import ; (see John iv. 14, et 
 alibi;) so that we greatly doubt whether this distinction can deter- 
 mine the sense. It can only be truly determined by the proper 
 antithesis of the passage, and the natural coherency of the narrative ; 
 
316 CHOOSING ELDEES. 
 
 right of the Apostles to appoint^ which they practi- 
 cally maintained, plainly involved the right to refuse, 
 if there were cause for refusal ; and the twelve Apostles, 
 who were native Je\A's, appealed chiefly to the mur- 
 muring Hellenists, who hitherto had been strangers to 
 them, to point out, by means of their more accurate 
 knowledge, who were the fittest persons whose case as 
 candidates might be entertained. 
 
 § X. Another place supposed to look favourably 
 towards popular suffrage in its widest form, as regards 
 appointments to office, is Acts xiv. 23 : " And when 
 they^^ (Paul and Barnabas) "had ordained them 
 Elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, 
 they commended them to the Lord, on whom they 
 believed/^ The stress in this passage is laid on the 
 verb x^LpoToveo), which signifies, it is said, the giving 
 of a suffrage by stretching forth the hand ; and the 
 whole meaning is understood to be, that these apos- 
 tolic persons ordained the Elders by acquiescing in 
 
 and if no question had arisen on the subject, I cannot imagine that a 
 candid reader of the second and third verses would come to any 
 other conclusion, than that the " we " who were not to leave the 
 Word of God {rjfjias KaTaXei^pavras...) were the "we" who were to 
 appoint others. All the way the persons addressed are necessarily 
 1/e or 7/o?(', and the persons speaking and acting, vje or us; these 
 last are the Apostles, and then the emphasis in the second and fourth 
 verses will naturally stand thus : " Look ye " (the multitude) " out 
 from among you seven men," &c. ; " but we " (the Apostles, &c.) 
 " wiU give ourselves." Allowing, however, the utmost scope possi- 
 ble to the above criticism, sm-ely Dr. Davidson would not settle a 
 principle, as he seems to do, upon a foundation so doubtful ; but, 
 whether or not, the concurrence of the chm*ch in the matter, sine 
 fjnd non, is a point which we should not at all contend against. It 
 is clear enough the Apostles would not have appointed any who were 
 objected to by the chui'ch. 
 
CHOOSING ELDERS. 317 
 
 the appointment of the whole congregation, as 
 expressed by tliis gesture. 
 
 It is not doubted that this was the original mean- 
 ing of the word, and that it was specially used to 
 express tlie act of stretching out the hand, and voting, 
 in Grecian assemblies; but, in the lapse of time, 
 words lose their exact etymological meaning, and 
 acquire an import more abstract and arbitrary. How 
 bewildering, for instance, at first it would be to a 
 learner of Enghsh, to say respecting any man, that he 
 had imposed on, put something upon, his brother, if 
 the meaning were that he had deceived him ; or that 
 such a fabric of cotton was manufactured, intending 
 to intimate that it was made by hand, when the 
 meaning merely was, it was produced by machinery. 
 So the word in question after a time meant simply to 
 elect, appoint, or ordain, whatever the mode of appoint- 
 ing or ordaining might be ; "^ and there were Greek 
 writers, such as Philo, contemporaneous with the 
 writers of the New Testament, who used the word in 
 this sense, without having any respect to suffrages 
 whatever. St. Luke, who, as the author of " the 
 Acts of the Apostles, " is the writer we are now con- 
 sidering, uses the cognate verb, 'jTpo')(eLpoToveoiJbai, in 
 verse 41 of the tenth chapter, in the sense of simple 
 designation. And in the passage before us the word 
 above mentioned is not capable of bearing any other 
 meaning; for they who had confii-med the souls of 
 the disciples, and exhorted them to continue in the 
 faith, were they who ordained these Elders. The 
 
 * Zeiglerus, Be Diaconis et Biaconissis, cap. v., § 4, 5 j et 
 Selden, Usser., aj)ud Zeig. 
 
318 POrULAH APPOINTMENT OF MINISTERS. 
 
 action must be restrained to these two ; ancl^ whether 
 they stretched forth the hand or not, or whether or 
 not they ordained, as Dr. Hammond tliinks they did, 
 by impositmi of hands, they were the parties who 
 authoritatively appointed to of&ce. Indeed, Dr. David- 
 son candidly gives up the popular argument, so far 
 as it is made to rest on this word, and is content with 
 saying, that the Apostles would not in tliis or other 
 cases ordain without the concurrence of the churches ; 
 — a statement which we have no wish to oppose. 
 
 Besides these, I know of no other passage quoted 
 in favoui*, on this point, of democratical claims, except 
 it be S Cor. viii. 19, where the brother is spoken of 
 who was ^''chosen of the churches ^^ to be Paulas 
 travelhng companion, and the treasurer of the contri- 
 butions of the Gentile churches. But, in the first 
 place, here is no church office-bearer at all, but a 
 person delegated to fulfil a financial mission or trust ; 
 one whom the communities concerned might very 
 properly send, if they could meet for the purpose of 
 agreeing on the matter; though, remembering the 
 trouble of such a procedure in those days of difficult 
 travel, the probability is immensely on the side of 
 supposing that the individual was fijced upon by the 
 letters commendatory of the Eulers of these churches, 
 • — the usual method, indeed, in such cases during the 
 apostolic age and the age w^hicli immediately followed. 
 
 In reference to the popular appointment of Minis- 
 ters, Dr. Davidson acknowledges that there is no 
 Scripture proof at all ; and, indeed, in reference to the 
 other particulars, he evidently feels dissatisfied to rest 
 entirely on his expositions, and chooses rather to rely 
 on a general theory drawn from considerations exterior 
 
LAY CONCURHENCE A NECESSITY. 319 
 
 to Scripture, — a theory which assumes that there is 
 and must be popular concurrence when tlie people are 
 not mentioned; and that the people may, after all, 
 suggest acts which they did not engage in, and 
 approve of functions which they had not the ability 
 to discharge: but all this is remote from the real 
 point in question. For our part, so far from using 
 the optative form of expression on the subject, we 
 contend for the propriety and necessity of having the 
 approval of God's people in pastoral appointments; 
 this is to assign to them a sphere of active influ- 
 ence and co-working which shall extend accord- 
 ingly as they possess, not the passion for poHtical 
 pri\aleges, but the light and unction of the Holy 
 Spirit, thus quahfying them to serve and become 
 great in that kingdom which belongs to the poor in 
 spirit, and only stops short of yielding them an equal 
 assessorship or co-pastorate, — short of that point where 
 the Shepherd is the Euler : and as to the concurrence 
 itself, it is only reasonable that it should be drawn 
 from as great a breadth of the people, as is likely to 
 furnish any contribution of wisdom or light to the 
 decisions or rules concurred in. The Gentile churches 
 were practically concerned in the Steward's function 
 of PauFs travelling companion, and were able to sug- 
 gest advices as to the kind of person it would be right 
 to intrust ; and therefore all are said to have acquiesced 
 in the selection. All the Wesleyan Societies dis- 
 tributively are interested in the exercise of ministerial 
 functions, and therefore all collectively acquiesce in 
 the appointment of Ministers. This is the last link in 
 that golden chain of gracious provisions which reaches 
 this world of sin, and connects it with a better. 
 
320 EEEEDOM PROVIDED FOU. 
 
 § XI. And this concurrence of the people on a 
 large scale, meets all the conditions demanded by 
 freedom, on behalf of a connexional body, however 
 many consociated Societies it includes ; for, if the 
 members of those several churches, as a whole, acqui- 
 esce expressly or tacitly in the body of the rules by 
 which the aggregate communion is governed, (rules, 
 I say, of application ; for laws to bind the conscience 
 absolutely no human society can make,) to impute 
 tyranny to the pastorate, when it administers the 
 whole, is as ridiculous and unjust, as it is insulting to 
 the churches in question. 
 
 Let the Scripture view of the work of the Holy 
 Ghost in the Christian church be fully expounded, 
 and then the truth on this subject finds a basis on 
 which to rest. Tor while, with Neander, we reject the 
 sacerdotal distinction ; with all the purest and best 
 catholic churches we admit that the Divine call, and 
 the associated quahfication of certain persons, throw 
 upon those persons the obligation of taking the 
 initiative in teacliing and governing, thereby creating 
 a New-Testament distinction. Moreover, the modern 
 intuitional philosophy which pervades the theology of 
 Germany, so thorouglily colours the entire Church 
 History of this writer, that his sum of doctrine 
 seems to be this,— that through all the forms of 
 external order in the Christian church, and through 
 all its variations of doctrinal teaching, the same 
 religious consciousness has existed ; sometimes power- 
 fully excited, sometimes half asleep, sometimes per- 
 plexed and involved, but always there ; an everlasting 
 plastic thing, mouklcd into special manifestations by 
 the human heart and inteUect, in which it lies from 
 
MOSHEIM^S ANTI-THEOLOGICAL VIEW. 321 
 
 age to age, in all subjective life. This so shuts out 
 the notion of a special Divine government, including 
 that of a particular dealing of the Holy Ghost with 
 men to whom His gifts and calling are at first, as His 
 own Person, objective, that the doctrine of a special 
 vocation to the ministry is altogether merged and 
 lost. 
 
 Mosheim, in respect of any question of historical 
 fact or investigation^ may be safely trusted ; but his 
 cold and spiritless theology, or rather his want of theo- 
 logy, in attempting to elucidate the annals of apostolic 
 times, hopelessly vitiates his general conclusions on the 
 subject. Thus, when he says that the assembly of the 
 people " chose their own Rulers and Teachers, or [that 
 is] received them by a free and authoritative consent, 
 when recommended by others ; rejected or confii-med 
 by their suffrages the laws that were proposed by their 
 Rulers to the assembly; ^^"^ this may be so explained as to 
 accord both with our views of the Scripture history and 
 our Wesleyan practice. But when, breaking off into 
 more general deductions, he adds, " They excommuni- 
 cated the profligate and unworthy members of the 
 church, restored the penitent to their forfeited privi- 
 leges, passed judgment upon the different subjects of 
 controversy and disunion that arose in the community, 
 examined and decided the disputes which happened 
 between the Elders and Deacons, and, in a word, 
 exercised all the authority which belongs to the 
 sovereign power ;" and when, in the preceding pas- 
 sage, he writes, " The people were undoubtedly the 
 first in authority ;^^ we ask, in utter amazement, 
 AYhere is the proof? Sentiments more opposed to 
 * " Ecclesiastical History," chap, ii., § 6. 
 
 y 
 
3. -22 BRETHEEN AT JEHTJSALEM. 
 
 tlie whole scope of tlie sacred narrative could hardly 
 be imagined. 
 
 Alas ! this savours too much of this worlds — of 
 the forum, the hustings, and the hall. A little light 
 of that rich theology of which Christ is the centre 
 and the sun, soon casts a glow over such a mono- 
 tonous and dreary scene, and transfers us from the 
 low sweep of the wilderness to the hills and valleys of 
 Immanuel^s land, where high and low, vast and little, 
 barren and exuberant, grand and lovely, and all har- 
 monising, are the attributes in type of moral church 
 scenery. The Acts of the Apostles cannot be explained 
 without a deep study of the Epistles of the Apostles, 
 any more than the transactions in the Garden, or at 
 the Cross, can be explained without the doctrines 
 of the Incarnation and Atonement ; or, to go far 
 back, than the migration of Abraham can be under- 
 stood without an understanding of the evangelical 
 covenant. 
 
 § XII. In further support of democratical claims, 
 it is said that "the bretln-en'' were present at the 
 Jerusalem meeting, the nature and object of which 
 have been already discussed ; and that they were asso- 
 ciated with "the Apostles and Elders" in the promul- 
 gation of the decrees. All true. But in what posi- 
 tion were they present, and to discharge what duties ? 
 "All the multitude kept silence, and gave audience 
 to Barnabas and Paul," &c.; and after they, (Barnabas 
 and Paul,) a-Lyrja-ac avrov^, "had become silent, 
 James answered, sayvng" ho,. That many of the 
 people were present, is accounted for by the deep 
 interest which they took in the subject ; but that they 
 should have taken part in this deliberation, is a 
 
BEETHREN AT JERUSALEM. 323 
 
 supposition not only discouraged in the text^ but one 
 impossible to be true : for the people of Jerusalem and 
 Judea, as well as the Antiochians^ came to have the 
 question resolved for their own guidance and comfort,, 
 not themselves to resolve it. "The Apostles and 
 Elders came together for to consider of this matter:" 
 (Acts XV. 6 :) the others were but present. And how 
 were the church associated with the Apostles and 
 Elders in respect of the decrees ? Not in forming or 
 instituting them ; for, in verse 4 of the next chapter, 
 these are said to have been ordained of the Apostles 
 and Elders ; but in authenticating them to other 
 churches, affording the weight of their testimony to 
 the fact, that these were the very decisions of the 
 Apostles and Elders, and also, of course, in giving 
 their hearty approval of the sentiments they con- 
 tained. 
 
 It is in the work of appointing "chosen men" to 
 be messengers, that "the church" are joined with 
 their Ministers, as described in verse 22; and it is 
 when letters are written and transmitted, that "the 
 brethren " send their greeting, together with that of 
 the Apostles and Elders, "unto the brethren which 
 are of the Gentiles in Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia." 
 ^Ylien the decrees themselves, and their authorit}', are 
 alone regarded, it is the work of the ministerial col- 
 lege : when these decrees have to be attested to 
 others, then the whole church, or the brethren, are 
 added. 
 
 An exactly parallel case occurs in the superscription 
 
 and sending of several of St. PauFs inspired Epistles. 
 
 That to the Corinthians (Eirst Epistle) thus : " Paul, 
 
 called to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ through the 
 
 y2 
 
324 ATTESTATIONS OF GENUINE DOCUMENTS. 
 
 will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, unto tlie 
 church/^ &c. That to the Galatians thus : " Paul, an 
 Apostle, and all the brethren which are with me, unto 
 the churches of Galatia/^' To the Thessalonians, both 
 in the Eirst and Second Epistles, thus : " Paul, and 
 Silvanus, and Tlmotheus, unto the church of the Thes- 
 salonians." Now here it will not be doubted whether 
 the matter of the Epistles in all the instances be pro- 
 duced by the inspired wisdom of Paul alone, — whether 
 he be the sole authority in the case : no one in any 
 age of the church, so far as I know, has ever thought 
 of laying to the account of the brethren on the one 
 hand, or to that of Sosthenes, Silvanus, or Timotheus, 
 on the other, the authorising, in whole or in part, of any 
 doctrinal decision, or binding precept, addressed to the 
 respective communions. The introduction of the 
 brethren in the superscription was to signify that 
 these had already received and believed the truths of 
 which the Epistle treated; and now, by concurring 
 with the Apostle in sending it through the medium of 
 a bearer, they testified that this was the very teaching 
 of Paul, and not some spurious production foisted 
 upon them. 
 
 And so mth regard to the other Epistles : whether 
 Timotheus and Silvanus had any degree of inspiration 
 or not, is nothing to the point : the Epistles are held 
 to be those of Paul. His co-Apostle Peter, addressing 
 all Christians, and therefore the Thessalonians, speaks 
 of them as his : He, " Paul, according to the wisdom 
 given him, hath written to you.""^ (2 Peter iii. 15.) 
 They profess to be such, and contain this note of 
 attestation in conclusion, "The salutation of Paul 
 with mine own hand, which is the token in every 
 
ANTIQUITY. 325 
 
 Epistle : so I write." (2 Tliess. iii. 17.) These Tlies- 
 saloiiiaus appear to have been tampered with by a 
 forged Epistle, as from the Apostle, which enunciated 
 deceptive doctrines respecting the day of the Lord : 
 (ii. 2 :) hence arose the necessity of having known 
 witnesses to the genuineness and authenticity of apo- 
 stolic communications; and the names of Timotheus 
 and Silvanus, who were then with St. Paul, are there- 
 fore appended to the initial address. 
 
 In this way, then, the superscription of the pastoral 
 or synodical letter to the Gentile churches (Acts xv.) 
 is explained. The brethren were associated with the 
 Apostles and Elders, as testifying to the truth and 
 reality of the acts of these latter in council, and that 
 this document was a faithful account of those decisions 
 and the recommendations thereon. 
 
 § XIII. Thus far the inspired volume; and I 
 do not feel under obligation to seek for evidence 
 from any other quarter. The object of our present 
 inquiry is not. What has been the doctrine or practice 
 of ante-Nicene antiquity ? but. What saitli the Scrip- 
 ture ? Yet, as antiquity has been quoted by opponents, 
 we may, in passing to our conclusion, just glance at 
 the spirit of its testimony. To my conviction nothing 
 can be clearer, than that the earliest minute and 
 authentic records of ecclesiastical proceedings are, 
 upon the whole, in harmony with the doctrines of 
 tliese pages. Such records are first found in the age 
 of the martyred Bishop of Carthage. 
 
 Cyprian resolved, he said, in one of his letters, " to 
 carry on no affair without the consent of the people ; ""^ 
 
 * Ejnst. xiv., p. 33. 
 
3£6 ANTIQUITY. 
 
 that is, lie had adopted, voluntarily, this princi- 
 ple of administration, — he yielded this : it was not 
 then demanded of him, or why did he mention the 
 matter in this form at all ? Nor did this admitted 
 concurrence of the people interfere with his own par- 
 ticular obligation and right to receive persons into 
 the church by baptism, or remove them by excom- 
 munication. He re-admitted, on one occasion, a 
 lapsed brother to the fellowship of the church, the peo- 
 ple also being present who were of the faithful ; but 
 the reason assigned is, not that they had a co-ordinate 
 jurisdiction in the matter, but that "this honour 
 was due to the faith and reverence of those who had 
 stood firm in time of persecution;'^'^ and it must not 
 be concealed that, as restoration to the church was 
 then thought to be one with the forgiveness of sins, 
 so the influence of living confessors, who had suffered 
 for the faith, was deemed available to procure it. 
 
 Still this is nothing like admission by popular 
 suffrage ; and, when separated from his people by per- 
 secution, Cyprian appointed several persons to church- 
 offices without any consultation whatever, and so far 
 departed from his general principle, thereby showing 
 that he did not consider his pastoral acts invalid, 
 because that principle could not be brought invariably 
 to bear. But the other, the converse rule in those 
 days, — maintained from the apostolical Fathers, — that 
 nothing should be done %a>/;k eiriaKOTrov, or avev 
 r/v(oiJL7]<; rod einaKOTrov, "without the Bishop,^' or with- 
 out his known sanction, was never departed from ; 
 for such acts as were in that sense done without him, 
 
 * Einst. xiii., apud Neandrum. 
 
ANTIQUITY. 327 
 
 the centre of unity, were invalid, and had to be done 
 again. This points out the relative value of primary 
 obligation on the one hand, and admitted concur- 
 rence on the other, — the very matter we are all the 
 way endeavouring to illustrate. He directed also, in 
 the name of a synod, that Bishops should be chosen 
 in the presence, and with the acquiescence, of the 
 people over whom they were intended to preside ; but 
 it must not be forgotten that the episcopate was a 
 dignity which had then much to do with all the 
 varied interests, secular and sacred, of the community, 
 with the administration of funds, "^ and various domes- 
 tic regulations. The Bishops, except in a very few 
 instances, were Presbyters and Ministers of Christ 
 previously to their episcopal election, and not made 
 Ministers by such election; and though sometimes 
 the cry of an excited community would prevail at 
 once to procure the election of a Bishop, as in the 
 case of the great Ambrose at Milan, and Fabian at 
 Rome, yet the instances are quite as frequent in which 
 Bishops are designated by private ministerial appoint- 
 ment. So Alexander, on his death-bed, nominated 
 Athanasius, who succeeded him.f These noisy and 
 tumultuous elections, when they did occur, were no 
 credit to Christianity, and have given too much occa- 
 sion for the cold sarcasms of Gibbon : they savoured 
 far more of the political spirit of the empire, than of 
 the seriousness of Christians who were anxious to 
 know " those who were over them in the Lord.^' 
 
 * That is, the apportioning of his own and his Presb)i:ers' salaries, 
 and the distribution of the otferings for the afflicted and distressed.-^ 
 Epist. vii., p. 14 ; Ixvii., p. 173 ; xli., p. 80. 
 
 t SozoMEN, Eccles. ULsi., cap. ii,, § 17. 
 
328 ANTIQUITY. 
 
 The learned Bishop Beveridge takes it for a rule in 
 early times, that Presbyters were not designated by 
 popular election, but only Bishops;"^ and Bingham, 
 who demurs to this, can only bring such instances as 
 those of Cyprian and Augustine, in whose case there 
 was special reason for publicity, to bear in the other 
 direction. But, however this may be, no person could 
 be admitted actually to any clerical office, but by 
 those who were in office before him, and in particular 
 by the Bishop. Laymen were oft admitted, too, into 
 provincial Councils in the age of Cyprian; and, in 
 cases where the assembly of Ministers rarely exceeded 
 in number those composing a modern Wesley an Dis- 
 trict-Meeting, this might be done without any incon- 
 venience; nor, considering the position which the 
 laity took, was there any inconvenience in some of 
 them being present at the Council of Nicsea, and 
 other large assemblies : but there is nothing on record 
 to prove that they took part in deliberations or deci- 
 sions affecting Christian doctrine or precept, or in the 
 spiritual administration of the churches concerned in 
 the province. The suffrages of the Bishops and 
 Clergy were slowly and verbally given, and the decision 
 taken accordingly. Thus at the Council held on the 
 subject of the baptism of heretics, at which eighty- 
 five African Bishops and much people were present, 
 none are mentioned as having spoken or acted, or even 
 as having given their suffrage, but the Bishops. t 
 
 Canonum. Nota in Can. vi. Cone. Chalced. 
 
 f Cypriani Oj)era, Oxon., 1682. Co7ic. Carth., a.d. 256. Also 
 
 " Cyprian's Life and Times. By the Rev. G. A. Poole, M.A., 1840," 
 
 p. 366. Some writers, in reading the accoimt which Eusebius gives 
 
 of the Council of Antioch, which condemned Paul of Samosata, have 
 
ANTIQUITY. 329 
 
 And, upon the whole, whoever, instead of cullinj^ 
 single passages, will study the entire ecclesiastical 
 spirit of the Cyprianic period, he will unquestionably 
 find such things as these ; first, a deep-seated regard 
 for the ministerial office, and a belief that, in some 
 respects, it had an unshared responsibility ; second, a 
 stern repudiation of any Teacher who had not minis- 
 terial, that is, in that day, episcopal, sanction ; third, a 
 thorough recognition of the totally distinct duties 
 and responsibilities of the laity in the church of God. 
 And, therefore, in this state of things. Bishops and 
 Presbyters could largely invite the people to go with 
 
 \\ashed to imderstaTid him as saying, that the laity of several churches 
 were present, and took part in the procedure. The superscription of 
 the coaciliar letter is as follows-. — " To Dionysius and Maximus, and 
 to all our fellow-Ministers throughout the world, the Bishops, and 
 Presbyters, and Deacons, and to the whole catholic church through- 
 out the world under heaven ; Helenus, Hymenseus, and Theophilus, 
 and Theotecnus, and Maximus, Proclus, Nicomas, and iEmilianus; 
 Paid, and Bolanus, and Protogenes ; Hierax, and Eutychius, and 
 Theodorus, and Malchion, and Lucius, and all the rest, who are 
 Bishops, Presbyters, or Deacons dwelling with us in the neighbouring 
 cities and nations, together with the churches of God, wish joy to the 
 beloved brethren in the Lord." It is perfectly clear from this, that 
 the churches of God were in some way associated with the Syrian 
 Pastors in deposing this heretic ; but how were they associated ? 
 The same writer informs us, in his twenty-eighth chapter, a little 
 preceding, where he says that Pastors of the churches at Pontus, 
 Tarsus, Iconium, Jerusalem, Bostra, and other places, assem- 
 bled at Antioch, on the occasion referred to, in vast numbers; 
 but they were Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons. The chm-ches of 
 God were present, then, in the persons of their ministerial repre- 
 sentatives ; and many of these communities had, no doubt, long 
 groaned for the removal of this proud, insidious, and yet fascinating 
 and popular, enemy of the truth. It was the logical acumen and 
 Christian zeal of Malchion, Presbyter of Antioch, which carried the 
 decision of this Council. — Euseb., Eccles. Hist., lib. vii., cap. 30. 
 
330 ANTIQUITY. 
 
 them : they only strengthened themselves by seeking 
 for lay concurrence and co-working, as far as it was 
 practical. The general tone of lay feeling, with regard 
 to the ministry, in that age, was perhaps the very 
 opposite of what it is in the present. 
 
 And, ascending higher, if we regard the testimony 
 of Clement of Eome, who is the connecting link 
 between the Apostles and the men of the second 
 century, he says, in his Epistle to the Romans,^ 
 that Presbyters were at first appointed by the Apo- 
 stles, afterwards ^^by other approved men, with the 
 approbation of the whole church;" plainly show- 
 ing that by "other approved men" he meant meu 
 similarly set apart, though inferior in order to Apo- 
 stles, — Evangelists, Angels, Bishops, or Presbyters; 
 and by the whole church, the laity, as distinct from 
 them. And then, if we take the statement of Cyprian, 
 already mentioned, who is the link of connexion 
 between the second century and the age of established 
 hierarchy, and whose testimony may be supposed to 
 involve that of the somewhat earlier TertulHan, (for, 
 it is said, he never passed a day without reading that 
 Eather's works,) he declares what is nearly the same 
 thing ; namely, that the Bishop is " chosen of God, by 
 the judgment of Christ, the testimony of the Clergy, 
 and the suffrage of the people;" t that is, chosen 
 from men who were already Ministers of Clirist, and 
 had been ordained Presbyters by the imposition of 
 the hands of the Presbytery. Nothing was further 
 from the notions of that age, than that of making the 
 Bishop the mere organ of the will of the people, 
 
 * Epist. i., 44. t Epist. liii., apud Neandeum. 
 
SCRIPTUEE SUMMARY. 331 
 
 either in excommunications or the appointment of 
 church office-bearers. To them he was, in a higher 
 sense than modern notions would recognise, the 
 Minister of Christ; and no schismatic adventurer, 
 such, for instance, as Novatus at Eome, who plotted 
 to obtain the episcopate, ever reviled or lowered the 
 office, in order to gain his point. The history of his 
 schism, and that of Felicissimus at Carthage, is full 
 of this, and full of many other things which modern 
 Methodist history has re-produced. My wonder is, 
 that able and serious men, found in the ministerial 
 ranks of those bodies which have separated from 
 AVesleyan Methodism, should allow themselves to 
 quote loosely from other authors passages violently 
 detached from ancient writers, in support of opinions 
 which Scripture does not teach, and which these pas- 
 sages themselves, fairly understood, do not contain, 
 and when the conclusions deduced from them are 
 wholly opposed to the spnit of the period which they 
 represent."^ 
 
 § XIV. And now, again, let us pause for a 
 moment, and, leaving antiquity out of the question, 
 let us draw from our present survey of the Scriptures 
 alone the general doctrines which, in connexion with 
 the whole of this subject, they teach. They are 
 these: — That the Steward or Pastor is directly 
 responsible to tlie Head of the chm'ch for the pre- 
 servation of His truth, and the maintenance of 
 purity; that although every member (he included) 
 is under the same law, yet he is the expositor of 
 LAW, and answerable for its enforcement ; that, in the 
 adjudication of discipline, appeal is to be made to the 
 * See Note (A), Appendix. 
 
332 THEORETICAL OBJECTIONS. 
 
 people^ as to whether that law has been broken, so as, 
 from their verdict or concurrence, to make the act, 
 whatever it is, the act of the whole ; yet that, if in 
 particular and momentous cases that verdict or con- 
 currence, through faction, be withheld, — or if doubt 
 should arise as to whether the law of Christ, in those 
 instances, applies, or as to how far it applies, — then must 
 the matter be resolved and decided by the collective 
 pastorate, as in the cases of Jerusalem and Corinth. 
 
 On these principles, though amid many involuntary 
 mistakes of administration, the Wesleyan Ministry, 
 since Mr. Wesley^s death, has acted, as I trust 
 to show more fully in the succeeding chapter; but 
 here I hasten to notice the theoretical objections 
 which have been drawn, as well from defective and 
 partial views of the Scripture places we have noted, 
 as from a speculative assumption. These objections 
 may be all involved in one general statement, which 
 is this : — That the application and administration of 
 governing authority proceed, in Christ's church, on 
 the same principles as in civil polity ; and that, there- 
 fore, there ought to be a balance of power between 
 the governors and the governed, so well defined and 
 settled as to make the whole regime constitutional, in 
 the jjolitical sense. This is the theory maintained by 
 the writers of the " New Connexion," and, I grieve to 
 add, of one now gone from us, on whose sympathy 
 and co-operation we had counted to rely till the end of 
 life.^ On this postulate consequence after conse- 
 quence is heaped, without the shghtest misgiving, as 
 
 * Rev. George Steward, in his work, " The Principles of Church- 
 Government, and their Application to Wesleyan Methodism." 
 
BALANCE THEORY. 333 
 
 though its truth were beyond all question, until a 
 full-proportioned structure appears ; but it is as base- 
 less as a cloud-castle in the air. 
 
 § XV. There is, indeed, a happy conjunction of 
 influence among Ministers and people, where all ahke 
 abide in the truth, which answers all the harmonising 
 purposes of a political constitution, even while it aims 
 at pm-poses far higher ; but this is not brought about 
 by what statesmen call ^^ balance of power," but by 
 the mutual fulfilment of a system of duty which Infi- 
 nite Wisdom has arranged. The Scripture puts the 
 matter thus : it says to the Pastor, " Maintain and 
 extend the truth at all hazards ; do it with fidelity and 
 love, so as to win all hearts and understandings to 
 your side, so as to gain a personal reward, and make 
 those you win the instruments of its further exten- 
 sion; but still, whether you succeed in this or not, 
 maintain the truth.''' And to the people it says, 
 " Fix your eye on the objects which the truth reveals : 
 seek and obtain pardon and holiness, and, after a con- 
 stant course of walking with God yourself, as well as 
 of bringing others to the same blessedness, defer to 
 the light and guidance which the Ministry brings ; 
 and, in this relation and employ, you shall so act 
 upon your Pastors, and they shall so act upon you, as 
 that you shall be together one body, and have one 
 mind.'' It is here that we have the analogy of chords 
 in music, or that of the conjoint action of members in 
 the same living frame; or, to use the wondrously 
 expressive language of St. Paul, the whole body is 
 "fitly joined together and compacted by that wliich" 
 (not a political expedient, but) "every joint sup- 
 PLiETH, according to the efiectual working in the 
 
334 BALANCE THEORY. 
 
 measure of eveey part." It is a religious influence, 
 acting upon and re-acting from every member, that 
 makes the unity : not a defined distribution of privi- 
 leges here, and suffrages yonder ; for these must needs 
 vary, as the intelligence of any given Society varies. 
 
 § XVI. The term " balance" is taken from secular 
 politics : it signifies an equipoise of powers or inter- 
 ests, else it signifies nothing; or, let our author's 
 account of it be adopted, "such a combination of 
 forces of different kinds as serves to modify the 
 ascendant one, and in action to represent them both." 
 Still the analogy it suggests is a false one. The 
 Magistrate deals with the man as he finds him : the 
 Pastor is laid under obligation to make liim, by 
 spiritual teaching, what he now is not ; and this is 
 the very soul of his office. The civil Sovereign is 
 the administrator of law which is thorouglily under- 
 stood and authorised within the community : the Pas- 
 tor is the administrator of law, the authority of which 
 is ABOVE THE COMMUNITY, and — Considering that its 
 members are being continually drawn from an alien 
 world, which is ignorant of spiritual things — of law 
 which he must gradually expound to a great propor- 
 tion of that community. The formal unity and har- 
 mony of the civil state is the Sovereign's aim : but 
 the formal unity and co-working of church-members 
 is only a means toward the attainment of our great 
 end ; and the securing of tliat end may often demand 
 a disarrangement of the means. The rights of civil 
 subjects are vested and inalienable: the rights of 
 awakened and penitent men, seeking admission, or 
 admitted into Christian society, are neither vested 
 nor inalienable, but acquired. The oneness of the 
 
BALANCE THEORY. 335 
 
 State is made out of the healthful counterposition 
 of its constituent parties ; the oneness of the Church, 
 by ha\ang no parties at all, but by all deferring to the 
 Sovereign Head. 
 
 The Ministry is a motive power, drawing the help 
 and acquiescence of others after it, not absolutely 
 requiring that help and acquiescence as necessary to 
 action. It ought to be ascendant in wisdom, in 
 goodness, and in energy ; and tliis ascendancy ought 
 not to be counteracted, or so modified as to have its 
 free power impaired, however the resolutions and acts 
 which are prompted by it may subsequently be tested. 
 
 Besides, there may be a pohtical harmonising of 
 parties, — a balance of power ; and it may be a wrong 
 and bad one. In geometry we acknowledge that two 
 lines, called perpendicular, may be perfectly parallel 
 with each other, and yet both sadly out of right angle 
 in relation to the base from which they spring : so in 
 ecclesiastics, a ministry and people may exactly work 
 into each other's hands in the way which a balance 
 suggests, and yet may be far gone, and farther going, 
 from truth and holiness. What were the atrocities of 
 the French Papistic Sovereigns, but results of the evil 
 balance of power practically at work between church- 
 men and laity in the ruling councils ? If the one had 
 been weaker, or the other stronger, those results could 
 hardly have happened. What were the oppressions of 
 the High Commission and the Star-Chamber in this 
 country, but decisions in which the lay authorities coin- 
 cided with the Bishops, and often formed the numeri- 
 cal majority ? On the theory in question, there can 
 be no independent action on the part of the Ministry ; 
 no means of meeting a sudden emergency arising 
 
336 BALANCE THEORY. 
 
 in Clirisfs kingdom, where emergencies are so 
 often arising, — and all tlie more frequently as the 
 end draws near. The Reformation would have been 
 impossible, under the sway of such a principle; 
 and the rise of Methodism itself would have been 
 impossible. If Martin Luther and his co-Pastors, 
 and if our own Founder, had waited for an equipoise 
 with their own of lay influence, before they made their 
 bold advances on the kingdom of darkness, history 
 would have shown a very difl'erent page. Lay suifrage 
 on any comprehensive scale would, at first, have been 
 against their scheme ; but they drew on lay co-operation 
 as a consequence to follow, and that was the proper 
 and heaven-appointed order. Moreover, the " balance^' 
 has been already weighed in God's own balance of the 
 sanctuary, and, in respect of gaining the purposes 
 sought for by it, has been found wanting. So far as 
 its principle is embodied in the ruling eldership, or 
 assessorship with the Ministry in the church, of non- 
 pastoral persons, it has had a fair trial in the course of 
 the last three centuries. Has it preserved Calvin's 
 church of Geneva in a right interpretation and admi- 
 nistration of the law of Clirist? Has it preserved 
 intact to the people the Helvetian Confession, or abo- 
 lished that document, — that testimony to the faith of 
 the Reformation ? Has it expelled those Pastors who 
 denied the Lord that bought them, and brought 
 in damnable heresies ? Has it not rather given up 
 everything precious in the Gospel, and silenced the 
 people by telling them that their representatives were 
 concurrent and in court ? Has it kept up the least 
 shadow of godly discipline in the consistories of Prance? 
 Has it fenced off the Protestant professors of that 
 
BALANCE THEORY. 337 
 
 country from philosophical neology and semi-unbelief ? 
 Has it preserved the venerable Chui'ch of Scotland 
 itself from schisms and disruption, whether on the 
 ground of doctrine or disciphne ? And, if we take the 
 theory of balance in its more Erastian form, has it 
 preserved the parishes and schools of Protestant Ger- 
 many from nursing and diffusing the w^orst heresies 
 wliich, since the days of Gnosticism, have afflicted the 
 Christian church ? Or, to come nearer home, has it 
 given to the Methodist New Connexion, and other 
 offshoots from ourselves, an energy, expansion, uni- 
 formity of teacliing, and power of witnessing for 
 Christ, which the parent Connexion does not possess ? 
 Sui-ely not. In the last case the stock-still balance is 
 the oidy one realised. 
 
 § XVII. The scheme in question is one which puts 
 down Christian virtue in some of its highest and 
 noblest forms. The Ministry must not move except in 
 a prescribed routine ; no great thing must be done on a 
 sudden turn, but according to a conventional com- 
 pact ; no serapliic ardour must burn out of the ordi- 
 nary line ; no luminous wdsdom must act, until others 
 are brought up to its own standard. Every man 
 must be timid of personal responsibility, and must do 
 nothing till it is thorouglily put to the vote and con- 
 ventionalised. The Pastor must glide along, in slum- 
 bering cahn, with everything arranged beforehand for 
 him, by compact ; never, with an aroused conscience, 
 uttering an emphatic ^^No !" or, from the prompting 
 of a glad heart, giving an equally free and generous 
 "Yea!" — deeming the untroubled character of his 
 course to be the ne plus ultra of pastoral regime. Is 
 this the imitation of the apostolic spirit, — this the 
 z 
 
388 BALANCE THEORY. 
 
 reflection of New-Testament polity ? Where was the 
 balance of power^ when Paul had to complain that all 
 they that are in Asia were turned away from him, and 
 he was left to contend for the truth alone ? Such a 
 notion is as abhorrent to New-Testament Christianity 
 as is the notion of lording it over God's heritage. 
 
 Now the Wesleyan Pastorate, its opponents being 
 judges, has to this day held the truth, — not without 
 controversy, not without defensive struggles, sometimes 
 against individual Ministers, and sometimes against 
 portions of the people ; yet, through all dangers, and 
 with much suffering, it has held the truth, both in 
 respect of the catholic doctrine of the Trinity in 
 Unity, and in respect of the application of Christ's 
 redeeming benefits to the souls of men. This is the 
 true test to which a church should he hrought, as any 
 man may see who will read our Lord's charge to the 
 seven churches ; not the test of being able to present 
 from year to year the picture of undistui'bed co-working 
 between Ministry and people. And this holding of 
 the truth is the starting-point from which all good 
 must proceed. And yet everything of the harmony 
 which the political balance-scheme professes to aim at, 
 has been realised in the best periods of Methodism, by 
 those higher and holier means which we have described 
 and expounded above. 
 
 § XYIII. Such a harmony was in full force in the 
 few years immediately preceding the democratical 
 tempest of 1848. The Societies were in peace, the 
 Missions to the Heathen were enlarged, new Circuits 
 were organized, and prospects of usefulness were 
 opening on every hand ; — (our author himself, up to 
 that time, and for the working course of twenty years 
 
BALANCE THEORY. 339 
 
 previously, liad been the subject of no misgiving as to 
 the polity of the body; this he confesses;) — when several 
 ambitious and disappointed Ministers, by extensively 
 circulating anonymous publications, slandering the 
 character and motives of their compeers, and using 
 other methods of like tendency, and sowing the seeds 
 of suspicion in the minds of the people, so as to 
 alienate their confidence and affections from the joint 
 Pastorate, and then appeahng to that political pas- 
 sion which the event above-mentioned had awakened, 
 produced the dreadful rent over which we all have to 
 shed bitter tears, and which this writer attributes, in a 
 great measure, to the character of Connexional govern- 
 ment. A most fearful form of sin is introduced, 
 — that against which the most affecting apostolical 
 warnings are registered : the consequences of sin in 
 their accimiulated form appear, and the result, forsooth, 
 is placed to the account of bad and absolute rule ! 
 Alas ! if sin has introduced disturbance in the admi- 
 nistration of the government of God, surely it will be 
 available to agitate the very best systems of man, 
 whether consolidated by balances of power or what 
 else. There is no setting off a dynamical counter- 
 poise against this evil, while letting the evil stand : it 
 must be annihilated. 
 
 It is of very little avail to follow our author (alas ! 
 that I should have to say it, — our assailant) into all 
 his minor reasonings ; for they are all founded on the 
 untenable position which is here examined, and must 
 stand or sink with it. A hmidred axiomatic sayings, 
 indeed, there are in his Essay, the truth of which we 
 own, but the adverse application of which, in the case 
 before us, we utterly deny. The cha])ter on " Modo- 
 z2 
 
340 BALANCE THEORY. 
 
 ratism" (how different from the Moderatism which 
 some in this controversy have advocated !) is mainly a 
 compendium of principles which Methodism is prac- 
 tically administering ; though they are here held up to 
 us with the intention to warn and to shame. The 
 attempt recoils : there are sentences which half reveal 
 the writer's misgivings, and amongst them this : " If 
 differences arise between them/' (men and their 
 Ministers,) '' as to what that " (Christ's) " truth is, in 
 particular cases, either as to doctrines not commonly 
 understood, or as to duties not prima facie acknow- 
 ledged, either mutual forbearance must procure their 
 union, or conscientious objections dissolve it."^ 
 
 So, indeed, we tliink ; and such has been the 
 simple and deep conviction of the whole Wesleyan 
 body during the strife. Such has been the monition 
 which the Conference especially has endeavoured, 
 with the utmost compassion, to utter in the ears of 
 the restless leaders of that strife, but in vain; and 
 when in this case a part — and, if it were thorouglily 
 analysed, a small part — of a community would force 
 its nostrums on the whole, which is the persecutor ? 
 When men are drawn by temptation to act the dema- 
 gogue, and to convulse a great people, or a great part 
 of them, with a view to the utter subversion and 
 prostration of the Ministry, Christian wisdom has 
 only to whisper, in the audience of the cheated, victim 
 multitude, this warning, — '^ Conquer, and you are 
 ruined ! " 
 
 * Page 82. 
 
341 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note (A), page 331. 
 
 So far as the testimonies quoted in various ways by our opponents 
 go to favour the usage of popular concuiTcnce in the appointment of 
 Ministers or office-bearers, and in other important church acts, I 
 have no disposition to cavil with them, whether they be clear or 
 doubtful. The question to be decided is, not whether the people 
 should have A voice in the matters just stated, but whether they should 
 have THE voice. No community lays greater stress upon popular 
 acquiescence in the ordination of a Minister, or upon having the 
 opinion of the wise and good in ascertaining the guilt or innocence of 
 persons sub judice, than the Wesleyan ; or provides more thoroughly 
 for the expression of both. But as many of these testimonies are 
 apparently introduced to favom- the notion of a primitive sharing, 
 between Pastors and people, of what we have called "primary 
 administration," it is necessary to occupy a brief space, for the pur- 
 pose of sho'wing their irrelevancy, and, in several instances, their 
 incorrectness. First, as to those testimonies of Cyprian which are 
 alleged to bear on the point. He is represented (" Jubilee Memorial 
 of the New Connexion ") as " according to the people the right of 
 suffrage in the appointment of their spiritual teachers, declaring that 
 they have the fullest authority to choose those who are worthy of 
 this office, and to refuse such as maybe unworthy;" (page 125 ;) or, 
 rather, that they " have the right to choose the worthy, and depose 
 the unworthy;" (page 127;) and the paragraph in which this is 
 quoted proceeds to state, that this right of deposition was actually 
 exercised in the case of Martialis and Basilides, Bishops of Leon and 
 Astorga in Spain, "who were deposed by their people for idolatry." 
 Now the letter of Cyprian which refers to this transaction is the 
 Synodical Epistle of the North-African Bishops, being the sixty- 
 seventh of the Cx-prianic collection in the Oxford Edition ; and from 
 this letter it appears, that these Bishops had fallen into idolatry and 
 sin ; that the people, in consequence, had justly left them ; that 
 other Bishops had been appointed in their place, according to the 
 custom of that day, by the laying on of the hands of neighbouring 
 Bishops ; and that, as the fallen men just mentioned had made a 
 party who still cleaved to them, the faithful churches appealed to 
 Cyprian, to be quieted in the possession of those new and faithful 
 Ministers who had been made to take their place. (See the Epistle 
 at large.) How, then, does this prove the point contended for? 
 
342 APPENDIX. 
 
 Those who are fond of such lore, may find in Cyprian passages as 
 opposed to the principle pleaded for, as light is to darkness. 
 
 With respect to the quotation introduced at the foot of page 127, 
 {" Memorial,") it is hard to say why it is inserted, except that the 
 writer intended to confute himself ; for if it does not assert the very 
 contrary of what it seems to be intended to assert, — namely, the 
 people's power of deposition, — then there is no real meaning in the 
 passage. The words are found in Cyprian's "Epistle to the 
 Lapsed," Epist. xxxiii., Oxford Edition: " Inde per temporum 
 et successionum vices, Episcoporum ordinatio et ecclesice ratio 
 decurrit, ut ecclesia super Episcopos constituatur : et omnis actus 
 ecclesice per eosdem prcepositos gubernetur. Cum hoc itaque 
 Divind lege fimdatiim sit, miror quosdam audaci temeritate sic 
 mihi scribere voluisse ut ecclesice nomine literas facerent, qiiando 
 ecclesia in Episcopo et Clero, et in omnibus stantibus, sit consti- 
 tuta." " Thence, by the changes of times and successions, the ordi- 
 nation of Bishops and the rule of the church so run on, that the 
 church is constituted upon the Bishops ; and aU acts of the church 
 are controlled by these same Kulers. Since, then, this is settled by 
 a Divine law, I wonder that some with bold temerity should send me 
 a letter as in the name of a church, inasmuch as the chm'ch is con- 
 stituted of the Bishop, the Clergy, and all the faithful." And thus 
 the letter proceeds, enlarging on the same point, and repelling the 
 notion that a people without a Bishop, or out of communion with 
 him, could act of themselves as a church at aU. 
 
 Too much has likewise been made of the passage, not only alluded 
 to by our brethren above, but quoted by many other writers on the 
 ultra-popular side : " From the beginning of my episcopate, I have 
 determined to carry on no matter of my own wiU without your 
 counsel," (the counselof the Clergy,) "and the consent of the people." 
 (Epist. xiv.) And again : " In ordinations of the Clergy we have 
 been wont to consult you beforehand, and to weigh the merits of 
 every individual in common council." (Epist. xxxviii.) Now, to 
 what do these places testify ? They testify to the doctrine of the 
 people's acquiescence in the appointment of their Pastors, which 
 doctrine we also heartily receive ; but they testify equally to a dis- 
 tinct and purely ministerial council, in which appointments to office 
 and all other matters were deliberated on. Moreover, the language 
 in both extracts is not that of a man who was acting according to 
 received and well-known usage, but that of a man who, through 
 prudence and humility, resolved to act in a somewhat singular way — 
 singidar for those times — in carrying the judgments of others, and 
 
APPENDIX. 313 
 
 especially of those who suffered for the truth, along with him ; aud 
 they do not refer to po]jular suffrage as heing co-equal authority, but 
 simply as giving a testimony to character. 
 
 Still, if it even could be proved that the people ever absolutely 
 elected persons to the ^linistry in this age, such a fact would form 
 only part of the case. The received doctrine of that age was, that 
 the exors potestas of the Bishop before spoken of, and the autliority 
 of the Clergy to administer the sacraments and discipline, were all 
 so connected with episcopal ordination, which to them involved the 
 gift of the Holy Ghost, that no man, however elected, could possibly 
 be a Minister, or discharge a single sacred function, until this ordi- 
 nation took place. Whoever clamom-ed for this or for that person ^ 
 the doctrine never was given up, that Ministers could be made by 
 the Ministry only. Abnost a tenth part of the Cyprianic Epistles, 
 whether from or to himself, might be quoted to bear on these points. 
 A few references must sutfice. In the tirst place, Cj'prian himself 
 ordained Aurelius, (Epist. xxxviii.,) TA-ithout any concurrence on the 
 part of others whatever, and thereby asserted a principal and respon- 
 sible power in this department, his office being the principle of unity 
 to the whole church. In the next place, such sentences as this, 
 taken from the Epistle (Ixx.) to Januarius and the Numidian Bishops, 
 on heretical baptism, show the connexion in his mind of the doctrines 
 of episcopal succession and sacramental grace : " But who can give 
 that which he hath not ? or how can he who has himself lost the 
 Holy Spirit minister spiritual gifts ?" &c. " Quis mitem potest," &c. 
 In the third place, his Epistle to Rogatian, a brother Bishop, 
 (Epist. iii.,) sufficiently shows his mind on the subjects referred to 
 above : " Grievously and sorely were myself and colleagues who were 
 present affected, most beloved brother, on reading your letter, in 
 which you complain of your Deacon, because he, unmindful of your 
 sacerdotal position, and forgetful of his own office and ministry, 
 vexed you with his misdeeds and insults. And you indeed, O bro- 
 ther, honoured by all about us, have acted according to your usual 
 humility, so that you have preferred to complain of him to us, when, 
 as a Bishop, with the power and authority of your Bishop's seat, 
 you had it in your povver to avenge yom-sclf of him at once ; assured 
 of this, that we, aU your colleagues, would have been well pleased 
 with whatsoever you, in your sacerdotal authority, should have done 
 to your insulting Deacon ; including, as we do, men of this kind 
 within the Divine precept, when the Lord spoke in Deuteronomy 
 xvii. 12 : ' And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not 
 hearken unto the Priest that standeth there to minister before the 
 
344 APPENDIX. 
 
 Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die : and all 
 the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously,'" 
 &c., &c. Ab init. : " Graviter et dolenter" &c. 
 
 In the fourth place, in order that it may he seen that Presbjiiers 
 and Deacons also acknowledged these principles, take the commence- 
 ment of the reply which the Clergy of the Church of Rome, filling 
 these offices, made to Cyprian's letter, addressed to them on the 
 subject of the discipline which the latter had been administering at 
 Carthage, in respect of the lapsed : " Although a mind that has its 
 own clear conscience, that is supported by the strength of evangelical 
 discipline, and bears witness to itself that it has acted according to 
 the Divine commandments, is wont to be content with God as its 
 only Judge, and neither seeks other men's approbations, nor fears 
 their charges ; yet they are worthy of double praises w^ho, while 
 they know their conscience is subject to God only as its Judge, do 
 yet desire that their administration should have the approval of their 
 brethren." " Qncmquam bene sibi conscius animus" &c. {Einst. 
 inter Cyprianicas, cap. xxx., p. 56.) 
 
 And in the fifth place, to show what was the authority of the 
 Ruler then in the matter of that discipline itself, namely, excom- 
 munication, and receiving members into the church : it is matter of 
 history, dwelt upon by Neander and others, that this Bishop would 
 often, in harmony with the principle stated above, and especially in 
 deference to the confessors who had suffered for the truth, hearken 
 to these latter when they interceded for the restoration of 
 lapsed, but penitent, persons to the church, and would associate 
 these confessors with himself in the act of restoring them. But 
 when several Presbyters in his absence, who were disaifected towards 
 himself, had absolved and admitted many of these unfaithful persons 
 without their having given sufficient proof of repentance, and with- 
 out the Bishop's consent, though associating with themselves the 
 confessors just mentioned, with whom they had tampered; then 
 Cyprian firmly denied the validity of the act, and disallowed it ; as 
 in this, as well as in all similar cases, he had a veto upon all the acts 
 of individuals and companies of individuals within the pale. In 
 writing to the martyrs and confessors, he told them at length, that 
 the part they had taken was far beyond their line. {Vide Epist. 
 XV., pp. 33, 34; also Be Lapsis, pp. 129, 131, 138; Epist. xvi., 
 p. 37, &c., &c.) To his Presbyters and Deacons, with even 
 greater energy, he inveighed upon the pride and divisive tendency of 
 the act, and declared his intention of suspending them from office, if 
 it were repeated. 
 
APPENDIX. 345 
 
 It will be said, " But in all this there is the introduction of the 
 principle of Jewish sacerdotalism, and a consequent misapplication of 
 the Old Testament." No doubt there is ; and we, equally with our 
 New-Connexion brethi'cn and others opposed to ourselves, repudiate 
 that sacerdotalism. But we ask, Why, then, appeal to this autho- 
 rity ? If there be traces of concession to popular rights, — which con- 
 cession, after all, when properly understood, never went farther than 
 we allow, — what avails all this when countervailed by such tremendous 
 powers as were then understood to be lodged with the Bishop ? — ■ 
 giving or keeping back the Holy Ghost, and the like ? 
 
 Let the prelacy and sacerdotalism of this period be allowed, and 
 then the principle recognised by the Roman Pontifical in the form of 
 ordaining of Presbyters may be safely granted along with it ; which 
 principle, indeed, ought always to be recognised, even where priesthood 
 is repudiated and unknown. The Pontiff is made to say, that " it was 
 not without reason the Fathers had instituted that the people should 
 be considted respecting the election of those who were to serve at 
 the altar, as to their life and conversation, in order that that which 
 was never unknown to the many, might be known by the few ; and 
 that the more readily they might yield obedience to those who were 
 ordained, having given assent to their being ordained." " Neque enim 
 fuitfrasira" &c. (JBontificale Romanum. Antverp., 1627.) 
 
 Thus that which seems to promise a license almost democratical 
 in one point of view, is made to cohere with truly unshared 
 power in the other. Men have here a voice in elections to minis- 
 terial office, who have nothing but absolute submission left to them, 
 when once that office is constituted and filled up. Even in these 
 modern days, the people of the congregations in the Chui'ch of Scot- 
 land are invited to express their dissent, if they profess any, from 
 the appointment of a ruling Elder ; but when he is appointed, they 
 are not consulted again as to any of his disciplinary acts. 
 
 Coming back to the very contemporaries of the Apostles, Clemens 
 Romanus is re-quoted from Colman : first, as addressing his Epistle, 
 not to the Bishop, but to the church of the Corinthians ; next, as 
 admitting the authority of the church in cases of the election and 
 removal of officers, and in the admission and removal of members. 
 
 If the matter were indeed so, this would be an important testi- 
 mony, seeing that Clement was a fellow-Christian and feUow- 
 labourer with St. Paul. But what are the facts ? The Epistle, 
 according to Archbishop Wake's argument, must have been written 
 at the close of the persecution by Nero, aTid about the year of Christ 
 70, or between 64 and 70, not more than ten years after the date of 
 
846 APPENDIX. 
 
 St. Paul's Second Epistle to that churcli, and much earlier than the 
 date of the charge to the seven churches in Rev. 1., which churches 
 then acknowledged some to be primos inter pares. No wonder, then, 
 that Clement did not write to the Bishop ; for there was no such official 
 person — that is, no Elder to whom the term " Bishop " iUst'mctively 
 applied — in existence. The church had not passed from that early 
 synagogal form which all the Christian communities had first taken 
 in the Apostles' days ; and as to the Pastors, they had been treated 
 by the aspiring and schismatic Corinthians with contempt, and prac- 
 tically set aside, much in the same way as they seem to have been a 
 while before, w^hen the Apostle Paul addressed this church. As to 
 Ministers being chosen cryj/euSoKTjcratrTjs ttJs eKKArjaias Trdarjs, "with 
 the consenting of the whole church," this is clear enough ; but did it 
 imply a primary share in the transaction on the part of, and absolute 
 control over them by, the people ? Let us hear the fellow-labourer 
 of the Apostle, in his whole account of the transaction ; for so far we 
 have seen only one side. Clement first alludes to their state of 
 peace subsequent to the reception of the Epistles of St. Paid, and the 
 coming of Titus : " Ye " (then) " did all things without respect of 
 persons, and walked according to the laws of God : being subject to 
 those who had the rule over you, and giving the honour that was 
 fitting to such as were the aged" (Presbyters) "among you." 
 Then, passing to their change arising from ill-used prosperity and 
 pride, he says, " So they who were of no renown lifted themselves 
 up against the honourable, those of no reputation against those that 
 were in respect, the foolish against the wise, the young men against 
 the aged : therefore righteousness and peace are departed from you." 
 Then, having alluded to the order and subordination, so far as these 
 merely are concerned, of the Ministers and people in the Old-Testa- 
 ment church, he proceeds: "They" (the Apostles) "appointed the 
 first-fruits of their conversions to be Bishops and Ministers over 
 such as should afterwards believe, having first proved them by the 
 
 Spirit Having a perfect knowledge of this" (disposition to 
 
 strife), " they appointed persons, as we have before said, and then 
 gave directions how, when they should die, other chosen and 
 approved men should succeed in their ministry. Wherefore we can- 
 not think that those may be justly thrown out of their ministry who 
 were either appointed by them, or afterwards chosen by other emi- 
 nent men, with the consent of the whole church But we see 
 
 how you have put out some who lived reputably among you from the 
 ministry, which, by their innocence, they adorned. 'Tis a shame, my 
 beloved, yea, a very great sliame, and uuvvorthy of your Christian 
 
APPENDIX. 347 
 
 profession, to hear that the most firm and ancient church of the 
 Corinthians should by one or two persons be led into a sedition 
 against its Presbyters." (" Genuine Catholic Epistles," Archbishop 
 Wake. Second Edition. London, 1710.) 
 
 The venerable writer does not addi-ess the Pastors, any more than 
 did his greater and inspired contemporary ; for these were powerless : 
 but does he acknowledge the chmx-h as being the authority which set 
 them up ? No : this he attributes to Apostles or " other eminent 
 men," as Evangelists, while the church was, however, and rightly 
 so, a consenting party. Does he acknowledge the right of the con- 
 gregation to dismiss them ? No : he denies it. Does he recom- 
 mend a mutual adjustment and compromise ? No : he charges the 
 church with sedition, and exhorts them to submission. 
 
 As a witness on the side of pastoral obligation and responsibility, 
 I might, as it is well known, quote Ignatius, who lived a Kttle later, 
 freely ; but, as his Epistles are suspected to be interpolated, I for- 
 bear. 
 
 But the cause of scriptural truth does not need them. Writers 
 who set up a special plea from passages which are taken here and 
 there out of their proper connexion, may often make out a plausible 
 case on any subject ; but a wider and more patient sm'vey dispels the 
 illusion. On the subject treated in these pages, some supporters of 
 ultra-popular theories caU their witnesses from antiquity ; but when 
 they are cross-examined, they prove far too much for their advo- 
 cates : and therefore, as to the cause for which they are called, they 
 prove nothing. How much they testify which tends in another and 
 counteracting direction, I leave the reader to judge. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 LAY INFLUENCE AND CO-WORKING, AS EMBODIED 
 IN METHODISM. 
 
 " Many are we now and one, 
 We who Jesus have put on : 
 There is neither bond nor free, 
 Male nor female. Lord, in Thee !" 
 
 § I. Not to detain the reader a moment by any- 
 preliminary observations in the treatment of this part 
 of onr theme, I proceed to observe at once, that the 
 Superintendent, or his colleague acting for him, is 
 required to prove the fault or sin of any accused per- 
 son, who is liable to be censured or separated, before 
 the Leaders in the Leaders' -Meeting ; or, in the case of 
 the person demanding a trial, they are invited to judge, 
 and determine by their verdict, whether or not he is 
 guilty of a violation of some law of Scripture, or of 
 the particular Society with which he is connected :^ 
 and if he be found guilty, then, before the Superin- 
 tendent shall formally and by pastoral act separate 
 that person, or administer any other censure, inas- 
 much as the Leaders'-Meeting is only an incomplete 
 representation of the wisdom and piety of the whole 
 Society, he is required for the space of a week to 
 take counsel, not only witli the members of that Meet- 
 ing, but with others beyond it, in order to obtain a 
 
 * "Minutes of Conference, 1835," vol. vii., p. 581, et seq. 
 
CIltCUIT-MEETING. 349 
 
 solid judgment^ as to the righteousness, or otherwise, 
 of the full or mitigated censure to be inflicted ; leav- 
 ing, however, as must be the case in a united Church 
 both to the party accused and the Pastor the right of 
 appeal to the District-Meeting and Conference; if 
 either the one complain of an unfair trial, or the 
 other of being hampered and restrained by a preju- 
 diced verdict, — one which is palpably at variance with 
 facts. ^Vliere the alleged sin or violation of rule is 
 not denied, and no trial is asked for, it only remains 
 then for the Pastor, in the spirit of fidelity and 
 meekness, to execute the standing regulation in 
 the case. 
 
 But against a sentence of expulsion pronounced by 
 the Superintendent, after the verdict of a Leaders^- 
 Meeting, the regulations of 1835 give to every mem- 
 ber or local officer the right of appeal to a Minor 
 District-Meeting;^ and in the modifications, too, made 
 in the year 1852, it is provided— ;/br extraordinary 
 cases — that, should there be dissatisfaction, on either 
 side, with the verdict of a Leaders^-Meeting, then, 
 before the appeal goes to the superior tribunals, 
 there shall be a re-hearing of the case, before a jmy 
 of twelve persons, chosen by the Quarterly Meeting of 
 the Circuit in which the offence occurs, and a new ver- 
 dict taken ; in order that this wider appeal to persons 
 more likely to be dispassionate and disinterested may 
 have the effect of bringing the case to a speedier and 
 more satisfactory conclusion; and so making the 
 appeal to the District-Meeting, and the Conference, 
 which is the final authority, only a last resource. In 
 
 ♦ "Minutes of Conference, 1835," vol. vii., p. 581. 
 
350 MR. Wesley's usage. 
 
 tlie same regulations it is likewise provided, (only 
 thereby explaining a rule of 1794,) that where a 
 Trustee of a chapel is accused, the co-Trustees of 
 that chapel, being members of tlie same Society, shall, 
 in the case of a trial, meet with the Leaders, and take 
 part in the verdict.* 
 
 While Mr. Wesley lived, admission to, and exclu- 
 sion from, the Societies, were functions which he and 
 the Superintendents acting with him performed on 
 their own responsibility. But, in the year 1797, it 
 was conceded, that no person should be expelled for 
 any breach of the rules, or for manifest immoralit}^, 
 till such fact or crime had been proved in the way 
 just mentioned. Disaffected parties, in Mr. Kilham's 
 division, in the schism at Leeds, in Dr. Warren's 
 breach in 1835, and in the strifes of 1849-1852, have 
 aU claimed for the Leaders' -Meeting, on the ground 
 of this concession, aU the democratical power of an 
 Independent church, where the members decide, not 
 only upon the guilt, or otherwise, of the party, but 
 upon his sentence as well, — where they, in their col- 
 lective character, bind or loose him. Now, if the 
 Conference had indeed done this, it had done an evil 
 and unscriptural tiling, — a thing that ought to be 
 undone; — it had resigned a responsibih ty, received 
 from the supreme Bishop of souls, into the hands of 
 those who had not the means of sustaining it. 
 The arguments of a former chapter, and of others 
 preceding, have, it is hoped, made this matter 
 clear : but that the Conference did not resign this 
 intransmissible power, is most evident from' the accu- 
 
 * " Minutes of Conference, 1852," pp. 161-166. 
 
OTHER POWERS OF LAITY. 351 
 
 rate detail^ by the Eev. Dr. Beecham, of the transactions 
 connected witli the " Plan of Pacification/' and the sub- 
 sequent Regulations of 1797^ in liis most lucid "Essay 
 on the Constitution of Wesleyan Methodism/'"^ and 
 from the explanation given in the " Minutes of Confer- 
 ence/' in the year 1835; the whole being confirmed^ 
 subsequently, by the solemn testimony of aged living 
 Ministers who took part in those anxious affairs at 
 the time. 
 
 Then the Leaders have a right, likewise, of declar- 
 ing any candidate for admission into the Societies 
 unfit to be received, after which declaration the per- 
 son is not received. Office-bearers, as Leaders and 
 Local Preachers, have the right of objecting to the 
 introduction amongst tbemselves of persons whom 
 they may deem unfit, or with whom they may not be 
 disposed officially to associate ; as, also, of deliberating 
 mutually in reference to the discharge of their mutual 
 duties, and of deciding on the fault or delinquency of 
 those who are accused of neglect, incompetency, or any 
 other fault involving the liability of removal from office. 
 
 Laymen receive, hold, and disburse all the funds 
 contributed for the relief of the poor, and support of 
 the Ministry. Laymen, that is, two from each Cir- 
 cuit, sit in every District- Meeting, and vote on every 
 subject w^hich is not connected with its purely spi- 
 ritual functions. Laymen, in equal numbers with 
 Ministers, regularly chosen or changed, sit and vote 
 in the Missionary Committee, and in the Committees 
 of the Theological Institution, the Kingswood and 
 
 * Third Edition, 1851. John Mason, 14, City-road. See also "A 
 letter to Richard Matthews, Esq. By the Hev. William Arthur, 
 A.M." 
 
353 LAITY IN ASSEMBLIES. 
 
 Woodliouse-Grove Schools, of Education, of the 
 Chapel Fund, the Coiithigeiit Fund, of Privileges, 
 and all others. Laymen, in all the Circuits, tlirough 
 their official organs, the Circuit Stewards, can invite 
 particular Ministers to labour among them ; and this 
 invitation, unless public reasons of a paramount 
 nature intervene, is always ratified, and acted on, by 
 the Conference. Laymen, through the medium of 
 their own Quarterly Meeting, can memorialise the 
 Conference on any subject whatever, not involving an 
 infraction of its constitutional principles. 
 
 As the Annual Conference approaches, the leading 
 lay members of all Committees, and many other lay 
 persons of intelligence and worth, are summoned to a 
 preliminary deliberation on all the economical sub- 
 jects of the year ; and nothing is ever transacted in 
 Conference, affecting the several departments, with- 
 out securing in this way, previously, their general 
 and pledged concurrence. So that, although they do 
 not sit in Conference, their influence, in reference to 
 subjects to which that influence is legitimately 
 applied, is brought more directly to bear than it 
 could be by a mingled assembly. Socrates tells us, 
 in substance,^ that before the Council of Nicsea 
 opened, there were many little knots and circles of 
 advocates and rhetoricians, who tried their skill on 
 the great questions in previous dispute; but no 
 account of their discussions was taken. Here, how- 
 ever, the results of our lay deliberations are taken 
 and acted on bond fide; and every advantage is 
 gained from the energetic co-operation of brethren, 
 
 * Eccles. Hist., lib. i., cap. 8. 
 
SPIEITUALITIES ONLY LEFT TO THE CONFERENCE. 353 
 
 without the mischief and destruction which would 
 result from the blending of totally distinct functions, 
 and the annihilation of a Pastor's accountability. And 
 with regard to the general rules which are thus 
 adopted by the Conference itseK for the regulation 
 of the whole body, the laity, in the first Quarterly 
 Meeting after, have the opportunity accorded them of 
 declaring their disapprobation of any particular rule, 
 if they judge that its operation would be unfavour- 
 able to themselves; and in this case it is pro\dded, 
 that its enforcement shall then be suspended for a year 
 in that Circuit, until the Conference shall have had an 
 opportunity of testing all the Circuits upon the ques- 
 tion. And this, we are bold to say, is the primitive 
 and apostoHcal plan, — the Ministry first devising the 
 rule, and then commending it to the calm and 
 dispassionate consideration of the people. What 
 the Ministers have left is, the guardianship of the 
 truth, disciphnary power over each other, the regu- 
 lation of spiritual services, and so much right of 
 office, in judicial respects, as enables them to put 
 away sin from the Christian congregation, and stand 
 clear with their Divine Master. And if, in times of 
 trouble and agitation, when the usual forms of pro- 
 cedure are set at nought by violent and restless men, 
 the power of the Special District-Meeting is brought 
 in, to adjudicate and set in order everything pro tem- 
 pore, it is but applying the episcopal authority, which 
 always inheres in the collective Pastorate, to meet a 
 special emergency; yet, in the application of this, 
 the laity are not excluded from giving testimony 
 and advice. 
 
 Where, then, it may be asked, is there a commu- 
 
 A A 
 
354 CHARGE OF ULTRAMONTANISM. 
 
 nion on earth whose laity has so wide, intelligent, 
 and influential a sphere ? Do the churches of even 
 republican America go further ? The vulgar clamour 
 excited in times of controversy, — mean and spiritless 
 expedient of demagogism, — that the people are slaves, 
 has been repeatedly silenced, not more by the firm 
 bearing of the Pastorate, opposing sin, and enduring, 
 for a while, ignorant delusion, than by the manly 
 suffrage of tens of thousands of the people, who have 
 declared the contrary, and who never could see that 
 the maintenance of their own rights demanded the 
 subversion of those which belong to that peculiar 
 relation subsisting between Christ and the shepherds 
 whom He calls to the charge of His flock ; but who 
 did see that the removal of this last would be tak- 
 ing away the guarantee of their peace, their order, 
 yea, and, in the end, even their rights. 
 < When Mr. Isaac Taylor accuses even primitive 
 Methodism, the Methodism which Mr. Wesley admi- 
 nistered, as being " ultramontane," his haste, if not 
 his rashness, overbears his usual candour. How can 
 a Pastorate which claims authority over no man a 
 moment longer than he voluntarily acknowledges his 
 relation to it, whose worst infliction is putting a 
 guilty person out of that relation, be "ultramon- 
 tane?" — a designation proper only to a system which 
 rules over all within its territory, claims authority 
 over every baptized person, inflicts upon the offender 
 bodily pain, and often, by a savage sentence, gives him 
 over to the secular power. And if the Methodism 
 of Mr. Wesley^s day knew no law but that of love in 
 harmony with truth, the modifications since his day 
 have certainly been intended as complimentary to the 
 
NO ABSOLUTISM. 355 
 
 intelligence, energy, and fidelity of tlie laity of the 
 body. What duty or obligation laid upon the people 
 in the New Testament is there, which they have not 
 the sphere and freedom for fulfilling ? 
 
 § II. And it is in the face of those facts, that 
 the writer alluded to in the last chapter"^ holds 
 up the Wesleyan system to the eyes of the people, 
 as being one of pure absolutism. The facts them- 
 selves are by him, and particularly with respect to the 
 District-Meeting, defectively, and therefore unfairly, 
 stated. But our answer is, that we deny the charge. 
 Absolutism is where an individual or a body acts 
 from entire self-will; consults with no one, con- 
 curs with no one. This is not the case here ; there 
 is consultation and concurrence on every side : and if 
 in momentous instances, where the truth and Christ 
 are concerned, the Pastorate must act alone, and on 
 its own responsibility, this is no more than must 
 happen even according to the principles of our oppo- 
 nent in his own so-called parallel instance : for, let 
 the civil constitution be as representative as it may, 
 and the balance of power as perfect as can be secured, 
 the Sovereign in Privy Council must often decide 
 what the ordinary course of law cannot. Is he, 
 therefore, absolute? It will not do in this large 
 argument to raise abstract theories, push them out to 
 all their consequences, and then reason upon those 
 consequences. It is easy for our author to take some 
 point or single feature of the Wesleyan order, as the 
 "Deed of Declaration,'^ the power of the "Special 
 District-Meeting;" and, starting from these, to raise a 
 
 * The Rev. Georoe Steward. 
 2 A 2 
 
356 TRUTH PRACTICAL. 
 
 rounded system, and call it " absolutism/^ overlooking 
 all its modifying appliances. Just as fair would it be 
 to call ultra-Congregationalism " Popery." It would 
 not be difficult to show that Dr. Wardlaw's (and our 
 author^s) exposition of Matt, xviii. 18, if carried to 
 all the extent of its application, is identical in princi- 
 ple with that of the Papacy; namely, that a given 
 church, so far as it extends, is the kingdom of hea- 
 ven, and that exclusion from it is exclusion from 
 Christ ; whereas Dr. Wardlaw^s practical administra- 
 tion might be, as no doubt it was, most mild, bene- 
 ficent, and holy. In the same way it might be made to 
 appear, that ultra-Presbyterianism is the very essence 
 of despotism and oppression, stopping the mouth of 
 complainers by yielding the show of representation, 
 when, at the same time, it has produced as many 
 martyrs and sufferers under oppression — at least, in 
 modern times — as any other section of Clirist's 
 church. 
 
 § III. Truth is not to be found by exploring the 
 nehida of abstract theories : its hght is a little nearer 
 to our own orbit. In other words, we find it in the 
 routine of hard daily duty, where practice, in a thou- 
 sand ways, corrects principle, and principle creates 
 practice. A few years^ pastoral toil in a Connexional 
 church, — a few years^ labouring and faithful contact 
 with the details of things as they rise, and a wise dis- 
 posal of them, — will make a wonderful difference in a 
 man wlio set out as a luxuriating church-systematiser : 
 and so it is in our Christian course all the way 
 through. We do not learn the truth of our Bible 
 well, if we fix on some peculiar text, and, starting 
 from it, call the whole doctrine " Augustinian /^ or, 
 
TRUTH PRACTICAL. 357 
 
 starting from another, call it " Calvinian ; " or 
 from another, deem it (much as we abide by John 
 Wesley's expositions of the Gospel) "Wesley an." 
 Divine philosophy has taught us, that in this life 
 " all things work together for good to them that 
 love God:'' and observation proves that there is no 
 conjunction or mutual action and re-action of things 
 more beneficent, than those in which our theories 
 and practice have daily to rub and modify each 
 other ; and therefore, when a Christian church which 
 has no secular arm is called to struggle, for a hundred 
 years, with the emergencies of time, and the varieties 
 of human nature, it can never keep up a sharply 
 defined and unmixed theory. This dealing with 
 idealisms will never lead a man on, either in goodness 
 or in energy. We are in the clouds when we ought to be 
 at our post. The Magna Charta of the Wesleyan peo- 
 ple is secure, not through a political, but a spiritual, 
 or scriptural, constitution ; not tlirough a balance of 
 power, but an adjustment of relations. The powers 
 which the laity exercise are not favours granted ; they 
 are rights recognised, — rights, because they involve 
 the discharge of obhgations under wliich those persons 
 themselves lie to Christ, — rights which have gradually 
 grown, because the obligations from which they have 
 taken their origin have themselves grown gradually. 
 
 And when our author, in his anxious explorations, 
 would hint about a separate lay conclave, or second 
 chamber, — to say nothing of the utterly uncatholic 
 character of the project, such a thing never having 
 been heard of in Christ's church, — is it, we would ask, 
 as the conclave must needs be elected, — is it for the ■ 
 yearly tug, and strife, and debate, inseparable from 
 
358 CHAEGE OF BEING ANTI-POPULAE. 
 
 constituencies and candidates^ that lie would exchange 
 the present state of things ? Would this preserve the 
 unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace ? No : 
 never. Besides, are we all the while appealing to 
 abstract human nature, with its siccum himeii, as Lord 
 Bacon calls it, of mere intellectual life ? Are we to 
 suppose no holy influence coming from above, — no 
 sweet unction from the great High Priest flowing 
 doMQi to all the grades, even the meanest, of His people, 
 — no charity, the very " bond of perfectness,'^ uniting 
 all hearts, even the hearts of those in most dissimilar 
 positions ? Are we, I say, to make no account of all 
 this, act as if such things were not, and make our 
 rules accordingly ? Then we are leaving out the better 
 half of our Christianity, — its common law. It is to 
 leave no room for the play of holy affections, but 
 rather legalise and stereotype everything. 
 
 § lY. As to the representation, that the spirit of 
 the Conference is necessarily anti-popular, and that it 
 is severe and exacting upon those individual Ministers 
 who oppose its traditions, the answer to this lies mainly 
 in the preceding pages. It is jealous of that kind of 
 license in its own members which would break away 
 from the original spirit, because it has not so much to 
 govern a body as to maintain a trust ; exactly as it 
 would be impatient of any man who, under pretence 
 of freedom, would violate a will. But as to being 
 anti-popular, so far has the collective Pastorate been 
 from treating public questions as though they had a 
 Preachers' side and a people's side, that several per- 
 manent arrangements were adopted through the first 
 suggestion of the people, and almost forced upon it 
 by them; such as the administration of the Lord's 
 
PEOPLE WITH US. 359 
 
 Supper; the origination of tlie Class contributions; 
 and the Eund for the Aid of Supernumerary Ministers 
 and Ministers' Widows : and, in all the sorrows of the 
 present conflict, nothing has sustained the suffering 
 and harassed Minister more than this consideration, — 
 that he has had the sympathies and prayers of the 
 great majority of the people, knowing, as most of the 
 people did, that he was striving to maintain their pri- 
 vileges even more than his own. Only let us be told, 
 that if we are outvoted at a meeting, and if, in 
 consequence, a certain heresy is allowed to run 
 rife, and a certain sin to pass unrebuked, we must 
 acquiesce in it, and there is no help for it ; then the 
 question is much narrowed : but our author shrinks 
 from this. Nor is it of much avail to set up a dis- 
 tinction between co-ordinate and concurrent juris- 
 diction; for, in any matter to be adjudicated, let 
 the decision have to turn on this question, — whe- 
 ther that teaching be a heresy, or that act a sin 
 against Christ's purity and peace ? — then, so long as a 
 mingled council or meeting of Ministei-s and lay- 
 officers determine the question by the votes of the 
 majority, the laity are then practical!// co-ordinate. 
 They might admit the distinction between a jurisdic- 
 tion which runs along w^ith another, and a jurisdiction 
 administered by the same order ; but all this would 
 be harmless logic, — a metaphysical plaything ; and, to 
 all real intents and purposes, there would be no dis- 
 tinction at all. 
 
 It is some abatement of the concern of the faithful 
 Wesleyan, on being unsettled by a former teacher and 
 guide, to know, that our author can find no rest for 
 the sole of his foot in any church systems, now exist- 
 
360 NEGATIONS. JUS DIVINTJM. 
 
 mg, whatever. He casts doubt upon every known 
 outward institute for the embodiment and conserva- 
 tion of professing Christianity. Episcopacy, Presby- 
 terianism, Independency, State connexion, and Volun- 
 taryism, are all seen only on their failing and deficient 
 sides. It would seem as if history had yielded no 
 lesson, and as if Catholicism, in its best sense, were 
 only an airy dream. Alas ! is Christ^s church on 
 earth yet in its babyhood ? and have ages of strifes, 
 heresies, desolations, disruptions, and martyrdoms, 
 passed over in vain? and, now the final conflict, as 
 many good men think, is drawing nigh, have we to 
 study the first principles of Christian organization ? 
 Have large churches been ruled beneficently and suc- 
 cessfully in vain? Must those principles be set at 
 nought which have been recognised from St. John's 
 time until now, — ^which E-omanism itself has rather 
 debased and caricatured than denied ? Must all be 
 unlearned, and men begin anew ? We are exhorted 
 to give up '^ the Divine right dogma:" and it is not the 
 first time tliis vague phrase has been employed to 
 misrepresent the principles of men who, whatever 
 their faults may be, would rather degrade themselves 
 than displease God; nor do those who use it seem 
 concerned to mark what a fruitful source of contro- 
 versy vague phrases are, and how many senses may 
 be attached to this in particular : but if by " Divine 
 right" is meant a right to fulfil an obligation which 
 is divinely imposed, — imposed upon Ministers in a 
 way, and to an extent, in which it is not imposed 
 upon any other, — then, as to giving up, however we 
 may deplore and be humbled for our manifold 
 unfaithfulness, we wiU give up life sooner. It is 
 
NO CONSTRUCTION OFFERED. 801 
 
 like asking us to give up conscience and under- 
 standing. 
 
 § V. And wlien he leaves the region of abstrac- 
 tions, what is our author's charge against the polity 
 which, for twenty years, he joined to uphold? He 
 does not say that the Conference has violated its trust, 
 or broken its pledges, of 1797 : he affirms the con- 
 trary of both these, and takes away the basis on 
 which a party of persons, calling themselves " Media- 
 tionists" and " Moderates,'^ have grounded their 
 opposition.^ He maintains that the Conference has 
 been faithful to iii-st principles, and seems to make 
 this the gravamen of his complaint. He does not say 
 that Wesleyan office-bearers are Elders, and ought to 
 be assessors with the Pastorate. He does not say 
 that a Leaders^ -Meeting is a church representative, 
 and that it ought to decide upon a censure, as well as 
 upon the guilt of an accused party. He does not 
 say that the Conference has spared unfaithful and 
 sinning members of the Ministry, or that it has been 
 severe and oppressive towards good and faithful men, 
 or that it has laid heavy burdens upon the people : 
 he is unable to affirm these things, because of princi- 
 ples admitted and laid down. What, then, is the 
 practical re-construction which he offers? one that, 
 in principle, at least, has been so tested and tried, as 
 to come with a fair claim to be regarded ? Alas ! 
 
 * Persons of this class can only, on Mr. Steward's principle, 
 oppose the present government of the Societies on the ground that 
 Mr. Wesley was a tyrant. This shows how harmless such words as 
 " Pope," " tyrant," and the like are, when found in such connexion ; 
 and only proves that such Popery, such tyranny, have procured 
 more Gospel and intelligent freedom for the world, than whole ages 
 of previous indifference and spiritual laxity. 
 
362 NO LIGHT PROFFEHEi). 
 
 there is no offer at all, nor any allusion to past suc- 
 cessful experiment and test : everything is unsettled ; 
 but there is no attempt at a better construction. We 
 labour amid clouds, and hope we are approaching a 
 dawning light, but no light streams : we are deprived 
 of our so-called traditions, but no revelation appears. 
 
 " lux Dardanice ! spes OJidissima Teucrum ! 
 
 Qua tantae tenuere morce ? 
 
 ut te post multa tuorum 
 
 Funera, post varios hominumque urbisque lahores, 
 Defessi aspichnus I" 
 
 In very deed, when an individual appeals to a great 
 Christian community, on the subject of the polity 
 which unites its members, and labours to withdraw 
 their love and confidence from institutions which have 
 ministered to their richest joys and holiest hopes,- — 
 which have raised their social position, and furnished 
 an object for their affections only next, if indeed next, 
 to the domestic bond, — he ought to be prepared with 
 some great illumination, as a recompense for the 
 sorrow, unrest, and unsettlement which, if successful, 
 lie is likely to occasion, and for the damage which he 
 inflicts, in that case, on the cause and kingdom of 
 Christ. But there is nothing of this here: the 
 people are led into a mist, and then their guide dis- 
 appears. It is reckoned to be a reflection upon the 
 head and the heart of the sceptic against Christianity, 
 that he provides nothing to dispel the darkness that 
 he creates; and, surely, (where a Christian is to he 
 compared with an unbeliever,) he incurs only a less 
 responsibility, who tries to shake the confidence of a 
 loving people, and then leaves them to fill the void in 
 their heart as they can, and to find as best they 
 
LOW THEORIES DISHONOUR LAITY. 3G3 
 
 may an object on which that confidence may fully 
 rely. The possession of intellectual endowments, and 
 a Christian reputation, only makes this responsibility 
 the more momentous. 
 
 § YI. And now to leave opposition-theories. I 
 cannot tell what honour is conferred on the laity by 
 the current speculations. The dignity of a Christian in 
 secular life lies in filling his own circle of duty with 
 appropriate Christian graces, — in lighting up a trade, 
 manufactory, or sphere of service, with the lustre of 
 Gospel principles, — ^just as the beauty and splendour 
 of an orb depend upon its keeping within its orbit. 
 Obedience, rightly guarded, is a grace no more 
 devoid of dignity and honour, than truthfulness, or 
 meekness, or singleness of heart; and there are per- 
 sons mentioned in the New Testament of whom it is 
 said, that their obedience went abroad unto all men. 
 It is a feature of Christ's image, a particular of His own 
 conduct when He was on earth. To serve God in a 
 layman's sphere, and obtain a full reward, requires an 
 absorption of time and thought which cannot afford 
 to work in two different directions. To touch the 
 things of this life, and turn them into gold, is a high 
 concern, the neglect of which is one great cause of 
 the impoverishment of Clu-istianity in the world, — that 
 is, in senates, in warehouses, in factories, farms, and, 
 most of all, in families, — and has the effect of bringing 
 tinsel into request to supply the void. Men cannot 
 be Kings and Priests unto God in secular life, vindi- 
 cating their spiritual birthright and unction there, 
 and at the same time watchmen upon Zion's walls, 
 looking at the phases of the night and morning, 
 or shepherds pljing their pastoral care. If such a 
 
364 LAY INFLUENCE, AS EMBODIED IN METHODISM. 
 
 state of things be attempted, the Priest puts off his 
 beautiful garments, and leaves the world and the 
 church without their connecting official tie : the 
 would-be watcliman, thus necessarily anything but 
 vigilant, is surprised by some stormy event, against 
 which there is no time or wisdom to prepare, and the 
 wolf from the wilderness ravages the non-tended, or, 
 what is the same thing, the self- tended, fold. If 
 every one in the Christian society, yea, if every 
 official layman of any age and class, is to be concerned 
 by primary obligation in everything which is done 
 within it, there is then an ocean-like restlessness 
 called forth, a distraction and endless stir, of merit 
 against merit, right against right, man against man, 
 which would make the working out of individual 
 salvation, and the accomplishment of priceless indi- 
 vidual labours, an impossible thing ; and the portion 
 of God's people would be little different from that of 
 the wicked, who are like the troubled sea which 
 cannot rest. 
 
 § YII. Laymen, imbued with the Spirit of Christ, 
 bring immense power to bear upon the church in all 
 its interests, when they occupy their vantage ground ; 
 for they can perform, in such a case, what Mi- 
 nisters cannot. If they are holy and earnest, how 
 can an unholy or slothful Ministry arise, or be 
 sanctioned ? 
 
 To assert that the inmates of the work-room, the 
 office, the exchange, or the farm, are to be occupied, 
 amid their other toil, in devising and determining 
 spiritual matters which have to do with the training 
 and edification in the truth of hundreds of thousands, 
 and with the general guardianship and purification of 
 
LAY VANTAGE-GROUND. 365 
 
 professing Christianity, is only to utter a gibe or 
 sarcasm on the individuals in question. 
 
 This all human consciousness feels ; and it is only 
 because the theory we are opposing has been prac- 
 tically departed from by its friends, that evangelical 
 rehgion has maintained such a good estate in the 
 world. I would rather, for my own part, looking on 
 the Gospel in the persons of its Ministers, adopt the 
 tone and moral of Augustine, and regard the inspired 
 Apostle John as a mountain whose top was bathed in 
 light, so as that other hills caught the radiance, 
 and mellowed it for the valleys, than view a dreary 
 level waste, where ever}i:hing bright or beautiful is 
 cried down. At all events, I should rather keep up 
 the notion of such a hill, and be looking out for it. 
 AYith regard to AYesleyan Methodism, far be it from 
 me to think that it is intended to become the religion 
 of the nation or of the civilised world : its main value 
 lies in the testimony which it bears to precious Gospel 
 truth, and the high degree in which it fosters tlie 
 internal life of regenerate men, and fits them for 
 awakening, by word and work, others who are asleep 
 in sin. Its order is so framed that, while Chris- 
 tianity within its own pale is kept intense, it is sending 
 forth influences and agencies beyond it, just as a 
 well-fed lamp is needful to hght up other unhghted 
 lamps around. If men propose that it shall 
 become a fellowship indiscriminate of all sorts of so- 
 called Christian people, and that limit of territory 
 shall be nearly the only bound ; that all shall come 
 and partake of its spiritual gifts without being obliged 
 to submit to any conditions whatever ; let this kind 
 of liberty be regarded as a right, then of course, by 
 
366 DISCIPLINE IS TO SUSTAIN DOCTRINE. 
 
 thousands of individuals^ the present restrictions would 
 never be borne. We all know this well ; and we know 
 that already these restrictions are intolerable where a 
 worldly spirit prevails over a simple desire of fleeing, 
 and luring others to flee, " from the wrath to come."*' 
 And with regard to that large breadth of aim, that 
 elevated mental bearing, that hatred of moral and 
 physical oppression, which Englishmen are wont to 
 claim for themselves; if the discipline in question 
 does not give a chastened vigour to all these, how is it 
 that they have been created and nurtured so largely in 
 New-Zealand, West Africa, the West Indies, and other 
 portions of the world, by its influence ? Men amongst 
 us are taught to revere the laws of general order, it is 
 true ; but who ever did a great or good thing, who 
 cherished a reverse sentiment ? By Wesleyan theo- 
 logy, learned in the inmost heart, they are so led into 
 the peace and joy of the Gospel salvation, that the 
 faithful among them — though this advantage is 
 purchased at the cost of making any Antino- 
 mian abuse of that theology stand out with a more 
 startling glare — become the subjects of love to God in 
 Christ so ardent, and with such a yearning of pit^dng 
 affection towards all men, that, compared with its 
 steady ardour, the bright fitful schemes of the secular 
 philanthropist, and the rhetorical flashes of the party 
 pet of the multitude, are but sparks of perishing fire. 
 Let men be kept right with God, and they cannot go 
 contrary to the interests of society. Let them stand 
 right and fair as children of eternity, and they shall 
 not damage the interests of their age. Let the 
 mightiest energies of the human soul be stirred, as 
 indeed they are, when Clirist dwells therein by faith, 
 
NOT OPPOSED TO CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 367 
 
 and you have the highest instrumentality for accom- 
 plishing the highest things ; and he who, by calumn}^ 
 and other acts of schismatic heaping of evil together, 
 would dam up that channel of life, that strong over- 
 flow of hearts, which swells on between Ministers and 
 people, and between both these and the world, (mad- 
 man that he is !) not only daringly defies the very God 
 of love and peace, but perils the most precious 
 interests of mankind. To recur to a former simile : 
 the Heathen had their fable of Prometheus, who stole 
 fire from heaven to animate his dead workmanship of 
 clay ; but they never had a fable of any one who put 
 out the flame. 
 
 If we are to preserve the vital doctrines which have 
 been taught for a century, with such hallowed results 
 upon the nation and the world ; if we are to keep up 
 a discipline of such an order as that whicli, while it 
 raises up a spiritual agency, and throws a guard over all 
 sincere and childlike disciples of the Saviour, testing 
 their purity and faith, will repel those who disturb peace 
 and paralyse love and zeal ; if, in a word, we are to 
 watch over souls, not content merely to tell them to 
 watch over themselves ; then we hold that the eccle- 
 siastical relations here reviewed and expounded are 
 not only scriptural, but so indispensable that no 
 corollary on subjects of a moral nature is more fairly 
 deduced than this. Given the first, the other is a 
 sequence which must be allowed by all who can join 
 two cognate spiritual conceptions together. 
 
CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 PASTORAL OBLIGATIONS. 
 
 " I HAVE planted, Apollos watered, but God giveth tlie increase." 
 —St. Paul. 
 
 § I. Those who, in arguing against us, assume 
 that we represent Pastors onl^ as being responsible to 
 Christ for the state of His household, waste their 
 arguments upon the winds. Other office-bearers, 
 and the people, are responsible too ; but in other 
 relations, and for other results. They are responsible 
 as to their power of suffrage in attesting a ministerial 
 call, and ratifying all economical arrangements not 
 absolutely determined beforehand by Holy Scripture, 
 as also in pronouncing upon the guilt or innocence 
 of any one in alleged violation of rule or law ; while 
 those who are over them in the Lord are obliged to 
 answer directly to Him, not only on account of their 
 own direct official deeds, but as to the fidelity with 
 which they have endeavoured to call forth the actions 
 and concurrence of others. The subject of this chap- 
 ter, as to some of its details, has been in part, and 
 unavoidably, anticipated : it requires now to be 
 exhibited in its full proportion and logical depend- 
 ency. The importance of doing justice to this part 
 of our plan must, therefore, be our excuse for any 
 instance of saying over again what we may have said 
 before. Proceeding according to the order of the 
 New Testament, we observe then, — 
 
feeding, what? 369 
 
 It is theirs to feed the church or flock 
 OF God. Tliis lias been so often adverted to, that I 
 need not dwell upon the point, but only give this 
 brief exposition. 
 
 To " feed the church," not only means to supply, by 
 preaching and exhortation, all its ordinary members 
 with the instruction they need for advancement in 
 holiness, and to furnish them with the means of 
 defence against temptation ; but likewise to raise up 
 and qualify, by proportionate teaching, all subordi- 
 nate agents who are themselves, and in a lower sense, 
 teachers, having the same common end in view : thus 
 making the Ministry not merely an institute for 
 dohng out milk and crumbs to children, but for 
 maintaining and strengthening, from age to age, the 
 whole Christian household, tlirough all its labours, 
 conflicts, and exigences. So that if, in a period of 
 intellectual activity, when sensible, inquiring, and 
 speculative men are found pressing into places of 
 employment and trust, the Ministry does not excel 
 them in breadth and comprehensiveness of view and 
 extent of acquirement, or surpass them in the know- 
 ledge and use of the Holy Scriptures, the paramount 
 condition is not fulfilled : " The hungry sheep look 
 up, and are not fed." A Ministry that can and will 
 feed, cannot successfully, or for long, be resisted or 
 scorned : ignorance in the Pastor is a grievous inlet 
 to temptation towards schism and rebellion in the 
 church. A famished and longing flock cannot afford 
 to quarrel perpetually with a good shepherd. " Every 
 scribe," said our Lord, "which is" fMadrjrevdeU, 
 " instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, is like unto 
 a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth 
 
 B B 
 
870 POWER OF ORDINATION. 
 
 out of his treasure things new and old." (Matt, 
 xiii. 52.) 
 
 § II. It is theirs to provide for the per- 
 petuation OF the Ministry in the world. 
 
 To the Apostles Clirist^s first great commission 
 was given : to them it was said, " Go, teach 
 all nations/^ and_, " Lo, I am with you alway, even 
 unto the end of the world.''' If aU nations, there- 
 fore, were to be taught, the men who first received tliis 
 mandate were concerned to provide for a succession 
 of teachers : if an order of persons exist with whom 
 Christ, in a peculiar sense, is, those who first entered 
 into the "fellowship of this mystery," as being 
 best acquainted with the qualifications necessary for 
 becoming the subjects of it, as weU as bound with 
 the obligation, are enjoined, on this account, too, to 
 appoint fellow -labourers, and these, again, to appoint 
 others, that no part of the church on earth may ever 
 be without a Ministry. In other words, this is to 
 assert for the Ministry the right and power of ordina- 
 tion, though never to be exercised without the concur- 
 rence of the people. That tliis is the doctrine of New- 
 Testament Scripture, is evident from several collateral 
 sources of proof. First, it is in harmony with the 
 law of expansion, mentioned in the second chapter. 
 Secondly, it alone agrees with that order of connexion 
 described in Eph. iv. ; namely. Apostles, Prophets, 
 Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers; and then the 
 body of the church. If the right actually to ordain, 
 as Dr. Davidson seems to think, resides in the com- 
 munity, then the stream of influence and authority 
 from Christ runs not direct, but broken and zig-zag ; 
 not as tlirough that opened heaven, where the mes- 
 
IMPORT OP THE TERM. 371 
 
 sengers of God are ascending and descending upon 
 the Son of Man, establishing a communion between 
 His humanity, or human ministry, and ours. It is 
 rather strangely represented as passing down from 
 Evangelists to people first, and then back from people 
 to Pastors, — a notion perfectly abhorrent to the 
 divinely-established plan, inasmuch as the ordain- 
 ing party must needs have a prior status and autho- 
 rity to the party to be ordained. And, thirdly, our 
 position agrees likewise with all the instances of ordi- 
 nation which can be found in the New Testament^ 
 and all the precepts which are given there on the 
 subject. Who ever ordain there but Apostles and 
 ^Evangelists ? Where or when do the Apostles give 
 the churches any precept as to their alleged right of 
 exercising ordination, or instruct them as to its exercise? 
 That Pastors rather should do this, is involved in the 
 arrangement by which they are given for the function 
 of edifying, — building up the body of Christ, — as that 
 is distinguished from the function called " the work of 
 the ^Ministry •" nor is election, even, strictly speak- 
 ing, the office of the community ; for God it is who 
 chooses, while the people affirm and recognise Tils 
 choice. 
 
 § III. The word " ordain," in our version, repre- 
 sents a variety of expressions in the original Greek ; 
 as, for instance, Jesus "ordained'"' (eTrotT/o-e, 
 "made") "twelve to be M'ith Him;" (Mark iii. 14;) 
 "Must one be ordained" {^evkadai, "constituted") "to 
 be a witness;" (Acts i. 22;) "And when they 
 had ordained" {xecporovricravTe^, "chosen") "them 
 Elders in every church;" (Acts xiv. 23;) "By that 
 Man whom He hath ordained ;" {Spiae, "determined," 
 2 B 2 
 
372 IMPOUT OF THE TERM. 
 
 or '^marked out;" Acts xvii. 31;) "Whereunto I 
 am ordained" {ereOr^v, '^set forth") "a preacher;" 
 (1 Tim. ii. 7;) "That thou shouldest ordain" (/cara- 
 (TTi](T7](;/' appoint") " Elders in every city." (Titus i. 5.) 
 No term, beside these, that I am aware of, is employed 
 to express the formal act of ministerial appointment : 
 and although it would be no good reasoning to say 
 that such a variety of expressions tends to the conclu- 
 sion, that ordination is a rite of little or no moment 
 or exactness, — for the Christian sacraments, bap- 
 tism and the Lord's Supper, which are allowed to 
 be exact and momentous, are themselves variously 
 described, — yet, in this way, the subject is presented 
 in such a breadth of view, that the narrow Roman 
 dogma, with all cognate doctrines built upon it, 
 is thereby more thoroughly refuted. Thus ordina- 
 tion is affirmed to be " a sacrament, ew ojpere operato, 
 of the new law, in which spiritual power and grace 
 are conferred, for the purpose of rightly and decently 
 discharging ecclesiastical functions;"* and "not 
 given in or with the sacrament by the receiver's faith 
 or devotion, but hi/ the sacrament, per impositmiem; 
 ' through the imposition' of hands." f 
 
 The prevailing idea here is, that a mysterious 
 potency is imparted to the acts of the ordained per- 
 son, and an indelible character fixed upon him, 
 by which, whatever may be the amount or defi- 
 ciency of his Christian graces, those acts are availing 
 for the spiritual consequences which they outwardly 
 represent. Tried by the standard of the ministra- 
 tion which exceeds in glory, all this is as poor in form 
 
 * Dens, " Theol." torn, vii., Be Ordine, no. i. 
 t Mem. Test., in 2 Tim. i. 
 
IMPORT or THE TERM. 373 
 
 as it is awful and destructive in its practical conse- 
 quences : it is not more contradicted by any one single 
 text, than by the whole spirit of the Gospel ; and we 
 may well aflbrd here to leave it in its impious pre- 
 sumption, only just observing that, as far as imposi- 
 tion of hands is concerned, this act is one which the 
 scope of Scripture history brings out in such difier- 
 ent applications, — for instance, as giving outward 
 expression to a father^ s blessing, as the act of bene- 
 diction by the Lord Jesus Christ, as a sign of heaHng 
 the sick, and of imparting miraculous gifts, as well as 
 of Timoth/s separation to the work of the Ministry, 
 — that he who would make it more in these days than a 
 gesture by which the soul expresses its most ardent 
 desire, hope, and prayer, in reference to him who is 
 thus pointed out, and strongly expresses its own 
 choice and designation of that very person, is likely 
 to be wise in no ordinary degree above what is 
 written. 
 
 § IV. Does ordination, then, convey no autho- 
 rity ? or is the authority which it conveys simply 
 derived from the election of the people, so as to 
 become their own transmitted authority? and is the 
 spiritual grace connected with it limited to the result 
 of the prayer which is made at the time on behalf of 
 the person ordained? Is the Brownist theory, sub- 
 sequently adopted by Mr. Eobinson of Leyden, and 
 the framers of the Cambridge or New-England plat- 
 form, our via lucis on this subject ? I answer at once, 
 that it does not fulfil the requirements of Scripture : 
 for, first, there is no such thing as an instance of the 
 absolute appointment by the people of a Pastor, in 
 Scripture ; and then, as the Pastor, from the hour of 
 
874 CUACE CONNECTED WITH ORDINATION. 
 
 his ordiTuition, which is tlic time when he fully enters 
 upon his office, stands in a relation to Christ different 
 from that of other believers, so the faithfulness of 
 the great Head of tlie church is pledged to the assur- 
 ance, that " Ills grace shall be sufficient for him ;" 
 (2 Cor. xii. 9 ;) that, (if the ancient promise stands 
 good to nil God's children,) " as Ids days, so shall 
 his strength be." (Deut. xxxiii. 25.) "Feed my 
 sheep," is a command given by implication to an 
 Elder, as well as to an Apostle, the Apostle himself 
 being witness : (1 Pet. v. 1, 2 :) and it were an ano- 
 maly in the covenant of grace, to arrange that Christ 
 should impose a Pastor's obligation, without impart- 
 ing a Pastor's spiritual gifts. If ordination in any 
 sense be admitted, then lie who instituted it pledges 
 Himself to impart grace, whicli shall be in proportion 
 to the exigences of the new position which is by this 
 very act created. To explain by a figure or analogy, — 
 without adducing that analogy as argument, — ordina- 
 tion is an act by which, according to the will and 
 commandment of Christ, His present disciples are 
 constrained to go forth into the agitated sea of a 
 ministerial life, while the power and faithfulness of 
 the Master sustain them, as they sustained the Twelve 
 on the Sea of Tiberias ; or it is, both on the part of 
 the persons designating and the persons designated, 
 an act of faith in the Chief Shepherd, — venturing on 
 Him for that peculiar grace which the usual store 
 vouclisafed to an ordinary Christian does not furnish. 
 Of course, prayer on tlie occasion is all the while 
 supposed ; and prayer of more than ordinary earnest- 
 ness and power; though it cannot be conceived, that 
 the half of what a candidate needs, can be tho- 
 
GRACE CONNECTED WITH ORDINATION. 375 
 
 roughly pleaded for in the course of an ordination 
 service. 
 
 If the authority of teaching, of jurisdiction, and of 
 ritual administrutiou, — all which functions are com- 
 prehended in the entire work of a Gospel Minister, — 
 be sim})ly derived from the election of the people, as 
 Dr. Davidson asserts, though without supporting the 
 position by a shadow of scriptural proof; then it 
 would follow, that the person elected was a Minister 
 from the first hour of his employment by the people, 
 whether ordained or not; and that this ordinance 
 would be nothing more than a service of prayer and 
 admonition for the benefit of one who held previously 
 all the authority which could be given him. There 
 is no way of bringing Scripture to harmonise with 
 the lowering of the ministerial appointment, but by 
 degrading the ordinances which he administers, mak- 
 ing them amount to almost nothing. This, of itself, 
 is enough to awaken, in a spiritual and ingenuous 
 mind, strong suspicion. 
 
 But why, if we must speak of election, must the 
 other component part of a Christian church be put out 
 of the way ? In arguing from Matt, xviii. 17, " Tell it 
 to the church,^' our opposing brethren say, that the 
 term " church " means both flock and shepherds. Why, 
 then, should it not be so here ? Why are the latter to be 
 put in or out, merely to suit the convenience of a fail- 
 ing argument ? Besides the people, or private members, 
 there is another party concerned, who have an 
 equally important stake in the matter, — the Pastors 
 already in office. They are under obligation to our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, whose Gospel, as far as in them 
 lies, they are pledged to preach unto all nations ; to 
 
376 
 
 maintain His truth in the world ; to commit to faith- 
 ful men^ who are able to teach others^ the things 
 which they have heard ; in some instances, even, to 
 act contrary to the people, that is, "meekly to 
 instruct those that oppose themselves,^' warned, as 
 they are, that a time will come when men " will not 
 endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts 
 shall, having itching ears, heap to themselves 
 teachers,^' (2 Tim. iv. 3,) — in such wholesale accu- 
 mulation shall faction act. These Pastors, I say, are 
 concerned, also, to elect; and as St. Paul lays down 
 the principle, that the candidate must be tried before 
 he is appointed, (1 Tim. iii. 10,) so the ordination 
 of every Christian Elder, which pre-supposes the 
 testing of his previous fidelity and call, is the act in 
 which a ministerial election is expressed, and, simul- 
 taneously with it, a fraternal committal of him to 
 their common Lord and Master, and to those pecu- 
 liar blessings of the covenant of grace which are 
 given to man in this position, — blessings which may 
 be improved by fidelity, or lost for ever by sin. 
 There is a sense in which men obtain ministerial 
 grace by faith, as well as a sense in which they 
 are justified by faith; and an ordained person, who 
 uses the ordinance in the spirit which the occasion 
 demands, is a Minister, who was no Minister before, 
 excepting so far as the omniscient and prevenient 
 intention of Almighty God — which, of course, can- 
 not be made a part of the question — is brought into 
 the matter. 
 
 § Y. It has been said to us by some, " True it is, 
 that Apostles and Evangelists ordain; but on what 
 ground is the right to exercise tliis function claimed 
 
PASTORS, AS WELL AS APOSTLES, ORDAIN. 377 
 
 for Elders?" The answer to this is threefold. 
 Eirst, Because their necessary occupancy of the 
 Apostles' pastoral position (Matt, xxviii. 20) in the 
 world requires it. Second, Because the function of 
 the Presbytery, in the case of Timothy, is the exam- 
 ple of it. Third, Because the whole scope and tenor 
 of the ecclesiastical Epistles to Timothy and Titus 
 involve it. The first point has been sufficiently illus- 
 trated already. With regard to the second, St. Paul 
 says, " Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which 
 was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of 
 the hands of the Presbytery.'' (1 Tim. iv. 14.) The 
 word "prophecy" here has the same import as in 
 verse 18 of the first chapter of this Epistle: "This 
 charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to 
 the 7rpo(f)7)TeLa<;," — the " prophecies which went before 
 on thee ;" denoting, as it does, those sacred 'xaplcrfiaTa, 
 or powers of spiritual insight, expository illumination, 
 and the like, which were given to Timothy by the Holy 
 Ghost, previously to the writing of this Epistle, set- 
 ting him forth as an elect person ; that is, elect of God 
 to the Ministry. Yet, however he may have received 
 from the Holy Ghost the '7rpo(f)rjT€ia<i, or however 
 the gift may have been communicated by the putting 
 on of the Apostle's own hands, as is intimated in 
 2 Tim. i. 6, still the Presbytery (probably of Ephe- 
 sus) had a function to fulfil; and as other things 
 needful for that extraordinary time had been extraor- 
 dinarily given, they imparted all l/ie^ had to give, — the 
 eldership. Not but that the office of Evangelist would 
 involve it, and in this way it would be doubly given ; 
 but the probability is, that this transaction took 
 place some time before Timothy entered upon that 
 
378 PASTORS ORDAIN. 
 
 office ; for the Epistles seem to have been wiitten to 
 prepare him for it : indeed, the clause above, " This 
 charge I commit to thee/^ especially, has the aspect 
 of being the form of a more solemn committal of it ; 
 and this incident of his concurrent appointment by 
 the Presbytery is left on record to show that Elders, 
 according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, do 
 impart the authority which they receive. The gift was 
 given him Bia 'rrpo(^7]Teia.<;, " by prophecy,''' but jjbera, 
 " with" the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery : 
 here, as Bloomfield says, [jLera only " denotes concur- 
 rence in the thing f that is, as the irpoc^T^Teia was given 
 of the Holy Ghost by the putting on of the Apostle's 
 hands, the Presbytery, acknowledging this gift, con- 
 currently imparted to him the eldership; St. Paul 
 taking him afterwards, and no doubt by Divine direc- 
 tion, to exercise the higher, the evangelistic, func- 
 tion, — that to which chiefly the gift had respect. 
 The Apostle's act in this matter had a different end 
 in view from that of the Presbytery, and proves 
 nothing in favour of Prelacy, however a simple 
 Episcopacy — primus inter pares — may be here again 
 vindicated ; for the imposition of his hands was the 
 sign of the impartation of a non-transferable gift, 
 the fruit of which was to be shared by all the com- 
 munity; and there is no proof that this act of St. 
 Paul had anything to do mth Timothy's separation 
 to the Ministry at all, excepting as it was preparative. 
 This same Timothy is exhorted to " lay hands sud- 
 denly on no man;" but if Timothy, and all men in 
 his position, could convey the rich graces of the Holy 
 Ghost by such action, actually making the elect per- 
 son what, in ministerial respects, he ought to be^ 
 
PASTOES MUST ORDAIJf. 379 
 
 which is the Roman theory, and runs through the 
 Tontificale Romanum, then there seems to be no 
 reason for this anxious mandate : but if Timothy is 
 Avarned not to commit ministerial responsibilities to 
 any, except those whose call has been ascertained 
 and tested as his own vocation was, then all is 
 impressive and clear. 
 
 If it be asked. Why, then, did not St. Paul address 
 his ecclesiastical Epistles unto Elders? the ready answer 
 appears to me to be this : These were a class of per- 
 sons then only m course of appointment, and had 
 generally to be selected by the Apostles and Evan- 
 gelists, in their visitations of the churches. To have 
 written to the Elders of all, or even of many, churches, 
 would have been impossible ; to have selected the 
 Presbytery of one, would have laid the foundation for 
 a kind of pre-emineucy there, and fomented jealousies 
 among others : but to address the Evangelists, was to 
 address them all through the natural and authoritative 
 medium of communication ; and, as those Evangelists 
 were to pass away unsucceeded, they, like the Apo- 
 stles, would be out of the reach of all harm which 
 might accrue to their humihty, from a view of the 
 distinctive eminence of their position. And this, 
 then, is the third point of our reply, that the Apostle 
 writes to Timothy in his two-fold character of Elder 
 and Evangelist, under both of which distinctions the 
 latter is laid under the obligations to teach, regulate, 
 and ordain, inasmuch as the Presbytery ordained. 
 The obligations that are enjoined are such as must 
 necessarily lie on some persons, that is, on single or 
 associated men, until the end of the world. If we 
 must needs pass over the various places where 
 
880 OEDATNIKG AUTHORITY NECESSARY. 
 
 Timothy and Titus are addressed relatively to the 
 ordering of offices and of churches^ saying, " These 
 are instructions for Evangelists, but not for modern 
 Elders/^ then the greater part of the Epistles is to us 
 a dead letter; the shepherds of Christ^s flock are left 
 without a directory at all. In this way many portions 
 of Scripture which were inconvenient to us might be got 
 rid of entirely. Different as are Prelatists, Plymouth 
 Brethren, and the adherents of the Cambridge plat- 
 form, from each other, yet, if the apostolical precepts 
 in the inspired documents above are to be carried into 
 effect at all, they must of necessity adopt one of these 
 conclusions, — either that there now exists, or ought to 
 exist, an order of Evangelists, endowed roith the same 
 ')(apLa/jiara and powers as were the associates of the 
 Apostles, in order to do what must be done, but what 
 Presbyterial Pastors may not do; or else that the 
 successive labourers in the word and doctrine who 
 now exist, are left to the discharge of their 
 momentous functions, until the end of time, with 
 scarcely any authoritative Scripture direction whatever; 
 — that the Epistles above mentioned were written 
 solely for men who were to live only a few years after 
 their date : — that is, one horn or other of this dilemma 
 must be chosen, if we are to reject what appears to be 
 the unavoidable inference drawn from the scope of the 
 whole ; namely, that the apostoHcal precepts must be 
 even now obeyed, and that those persons must espe- 
 cially obey them — Elders in council — to whom the 
 Evangelists have transmitted their eldership, though 
 not their extraordinary and co-apostolical charge. Is 
 it possible, that any sincere lover of his Bible can 
 ponder the last words of St. Paul to Timothy and 
 
ORDAINING AUTHORITY NECESSARY. 381 
 
 Titus, and mark the anxiety of that Apostle for the 
 preservation of the truth, after his death, amid the 
 dangers that surrounded it ; can attend to his com- 
 mands that Elders should be judged, that vain talkers 
 should have their mouths stopped, that heretics should 
 be rejected after due admonition, that only faithful 
 men should be chosen to the Ministry, and that tlie 
 Apostles^ own manner of life and purposes should be 
 followed ; and yet, after all, come to the conclusion 
 tliat this was intended only for the infancy of Chris- 
 tianity ; that when Timothy and Titus were dead, all 
 tilings should move on just as the people of the 
 different congregations, partly Jew, partly Gentile, 
 and partly philosophical, should guide them; that 
 when Christianity became complicated, aiid persecuted, 
 and surrounded with difficulties in proportion to the 
 lapse of years, there should then be no ministerial 
 judging of Elders, silencing of erroneous teachers, and 
 rejection of heretics, or selecting of faithful Pastors, 
 at all ? If so, it is possible to regard the Bible as 
 an old Almanack, true for the year in which it was 
 WTitten, but having no use afterwards. How every 
 principle of reverence for the Holy Spirit's work recoils 
 from such an insulting degradation of the Divine ora- 
 cles ! I know of no principle on which the ecclesiastical 
 Epistles in coimexion with the first chapter of the book 
 of Revelation can be harmoniously expounded, except 
 this, — that all the way there is assumed to be existing, 
 apart from the people, a power to ordain, to order, to 
 judge, to rectify, not only congregations, but Ministers. 
 This involves a connexion ; and as to whether Evan- 
 gehsts, or Presbyters, or Bishops, form the centre of 
 its unity, our Lord's charge to the seven churches. 
 
382 ORDAINING AUTHOUITY NECESSARY. 
 
 perhaps^ gives the best answer. Our exposition of 
 Scripture keeps us clear of the difficulties which are 
 here, on other theories, so formidable. If it be 
 deemed presumption to claim for Christian Presbyters, 
 called and qualified of God, the right and obligation 
 of ordaining Ministers, — which, to m}^ apprehension, is 
 best and most scripturally done; most in accordance 
 with Eev. i., where some chief Minister takes the lead 
 in it, — and thus providing for the increase of Christ's 
 kingdom in the world ; how inexpressibly greater must 
 the presumption be, to vest that right in the hands of 
 a company of persons, composed of merchants, and 
 traders, and artisans, apprentice youths, women and 
 maidens, as well as of grave and fatherly Chris- 
 tians, — to make this the authority for designating 
 and directing the responsible servant of Christ ! I 
 cannot but think that a jury of plain sensible 
 persons, clear of the influence of all arbitrary dog- 
 matisms about individual and inalienable rights, would 
 decide against such a notion at once; and that by 
 them would be deemed right, — every one's right, — 
 which was most harmonious with Gospel truth and 
 the sovereign rights of the Saviour. Many privileges 
 which we have as men, or as members of secular 
 society, we yield, the moment we are under a law to 
 Christ. — So clear to us is the doctrine, that they who 
 hold the office are the parties to convey it, however 
 the concurrence of the community is a necessary 
 guard to the right exercise of the conveying act ; and 
 from this will flow the consequence that every rightly 
 elected and ordained person is Preacher or Pastor in 
 statii. He has a right, by virtue of his office, to go 
 wherever there is an open door, and, especially, into 
 
SACRAMENTS. 383 
 
 the heathen world, and by preaching and teaching to 
 recover men to Clirist ; and then, being the spiritual 
 father and guide of his converts, and devoting him- 
 self to the work of edifying them in faith, he rules 
 them at first independently of, and antecedently to, 
 their own choice. Were it not so, indeed, how could 
 the world be evangelized and saved? He is an 
 Ambassador of Clirist, standing between the same 
 parties as did St. Paul, propounding the same terms 
 of reconciliation between God and man, obtesting by 
 the same authority ; and only different from that 
 Apostle in the circumstance that plenary inspiration, 
 and the power of imparting ^ap/o-yLtara, are here 
 wanting ; and that a calHng of the Spirit, attested by 
 men, comes in the stead of a commission from the 
 personal mandate of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 The same arguments which are here adduced to 
 prove the primary responsibility of Ministers in the 
 ordination of other Ministers, will also prove their 
 primary responsibility in the appointment of other 
 office-bearers ; taking care, however, to preserve the 
 principle of lay concurrence in its widest possible 
 apphcation."^ 
 
 § VI. It is theirs to administer the simple 
 
 AND I^IPRESSIVE RITES OF CHRISTIANITY CALLED 
 " SACRAMENTS." 
 
 As we entirely reject the notion of a priesthood in 
 the Christian ^linistry, so do we disclaim; without the 
 slightest reservation, the idea of any influence or effi- 
 cacy resulting to receivers of either sacrament, from the 
 person or standing of the administrator. Even Tertul- 
 
 * See Note (A), Appendix. 
 
384 SACUAMENTS. 
 
 lian,"^ in his day, who held no low notions as to the 
 effectof these ordinances, — that of baptism especially, — 
 argued that from the admission of universal Christians 
 to spiritual priesthood, they had a consequent right, 
 when necessity called, to administer; though, as to 
 order, he distinctly assigned the office in baptizing to 
 the Bishop, his Clergy, or some one appointed by 
 him. Whatever may be said as to the argument, we 
 have no disposition to quarrel with the conclusion. 
 We accept neither of the scholastic explanations of 
 sacramental efficacy : it is neither ecc ojpere ope- 
 rato, nor ex opere operantis ; neither in the thing 
 done, nor in the character of him who does it ; but 
 in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, vouchsafed 
 in connexion with all the required circumstances; 
 which grace ordinarily, therefore, is dependent upon 
 the faithfulness, more or less, with which the terms 
 of the evangelical covenant are complied with, and is 
 always suited to the age and spiritual acquirements 
 of the person concerned. The Apostles and Evan- 
 gelists usually baptized ; but there were seasons when 
 they may have devolved this act upon unofficial 
 parties, as it is likely Peter did in the case of the 
 Gentile converts ; (Acts x. 48 ;) for to this inference 
 the text is open : and when Paul declares to the 
 Corinthians, (1 Cor. i. 17,) that Clirist sent him 
 " not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel," this must 
 at least be his meaning, that his main, his great work, 
 was rather to preach the Gospel than to baptize ; for 
 some leading Corinthians, nevertheless, had received 
 that sacrament from his hands, and he must have 
 
 * Be Baptismo, cap. 17. 
 
SACRAMENTS. 385 
 
 deemed that lie was really commissioned with right — 
 as all the other Apostles, being behind them in nothing 
 — to baptize, yet still in subordination to preaching. 
 But this is only part of the case. There is another 
 view to be taken. Those wdio in Christ's commission 
 are enjoined to preach and teach, are commanded 
 to do this also, and to make the baptism and the 
 teaching mutually dependent on each other : so that 
 if there are instances, in the course of the Apostles' 
 ministry, when it was expedient that, like Paul, they 
 should refrain from baptizing, or where they would 
 depute to other holy men the performance of acts 
 properly their own, by calling upon these latter to 
 baptize; still they never transferred their respon- 
 sibility : W'hoever poured out the water and offered 
 the prayer, it was still their act. It was their autho- 
 rity which directed the baptism. Peter even, on the 
 occasion referred to above, commanded the converts 
 to be baptized."^ 
 
 We rightly deduce from Scripture, that the sacra- 
 ments are signs and seals of the covenant of grace ; 
 
 * There is a letter preserved in Eusebius, book vi., chap. 44, 
 vn-itten by Dionysius of Alexandi'ia to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, 
 respecting a certain Serapion, who, having fallen into temptation in 
 the time of persecution, was taken mortally sick, and ardently 
 desired to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist. A Presbyter was 
 sent for, but he, too, was sick, and could not attend ; but as the 
 Bishop had made previous arrangement respecting such cases, the 
 Presbyter sent a portion of the consecrated bread by a youth to the 
 dying man, restoring him to peace with his brethren ; and Serapion 
 received it, and expired. 
 
 It might be said here, that the youth administered the sacrament : 
 
 it was, however, only his hand that conveyed the outward element ; 
 
 it was pastoral ^wisdom which judged respecting the propriety, in that 
 
 case, of its administration, and pastoral authority which sanctioned it. 
 
 C C 
 
886 SACRAMENTS. 
 
 and whoever are appointed to open and propound that 
 covenant^ and offer its conditions to guilty men, these 
 are the persons to affix the seal, as being most con- 
 cerned, and most likely to know when these condi- 
 tions are accepted. This is a primary principle in a 
 matter, not of disputed right, but of indisputable New- 
 Testament order. They who receive infants into Christ's 
 church, by the initial ordinance, bind themselves sub- 
 sequently to teach those who have thus been made 
 subjects of it ; and, by promoting an efficient system 
 of household or parental nurture, or by making these 
 children catechumens, and instructing them as such, 
 prepare them for full communion : they who receive 
 adults only, have already taught them : so that baptism, 
 especially on Mission-stations, stands intimately con- 
 nected with the first pastoral function ; namely, that 
 of admitting members into the fold : and as the other 
 sacrament, the Lord's Supper, is not only the con- 
 firming and edifying ordinance, but that by which the 
 membership in Christ's body of every believer is 
 recognised, this also stands immediately connected 
 with the power of admission and exclusion. 
 
 The faith which is exercised in baptism is faith in 
 God the Pather, Son, and Holy Ghost, involving 
 affiance in each Person, for the grace which, in the 
 economy of redemption, that Person is pledged to 
 bestow, accordingly as the recipient shall apprehend 
 and apply for it in solemn supplication ; and the faith 
 which is exercised at the Lord's Supper pre-supposes 
 an acknowledgment of personal guilt, and the aban- 
 donment of self-righteousness, with a committal of the 
 whole soul to the merit of the Sacrifice of the Cross ; 
 and, when genuine, is necessarily followed by a holy life 
 
ADMINISTRATORS OF SACRAMENTS. 387 
 
 and conversation. But who is tlie proper person to 
 put the seal of affirmation upon the profession of this 
 faith in either case, but he who is called, gifted, and 
 ordained to, as well as practised in, the exposition 
 and teaching of the same ? The teaching and signify- 
 ing are joined together, as naturally as body and soul ; 
 and "what God," in this case, as well as others, 
 "hath joined together, let no man put asunder." 
 As long as it is written, " Tor we being many are 
 one bread, and one body ; for we are all partakers of 
 that one bread ;" so long must the administration of 
 that bread have something to do with the recognition, 
 in particular communions, of membership in the 
 BODY ; and that recognition is one which no company 
 of Christians, apart from the Pastor, and without his 
 distinct affirmation, can give. In early antiquity, as 
 we have seen above, this principle was recognised : 
 whosoever formally conveyed the elements, they were 
 given from the Pastor ; and when they were withheld, 
 this was at once the sign and result of the greater or 
 less excommunication, accordingly as the censure was 
 limited or absolute. He who, to use the language of 
 a somewhat more advanced period, set up " a difierent 
 altar," that is, administered the Lord^s Supper to any 
 people apart from the sanction of their own proper 
 Pastor, or contrary to it, was an openly declared 
 schismatic. 
 
 It would be easy to cover the page with quotations 
 that bear on this point ; but, as antiquity is not my 
 sphere, I forbear to adduce them. Unquestionably, 
 an act like this involves the very soul of schism, — the 
 essence of passion and pride. By that law in Chris- 
 tian ethics tlirough wliich all inverted or diverted 
 2 c 2 
 
388 ADMINISTRATORS OF SACRAMENTS. 
 
 ordinances are made hurtful in proportion to their 
 original sacredness and value, the man who divides 
 against the Pastor at the Lord's table, which is the 
 sanctuary and home of loving unity, is one who 
 divides indeed ; and all the more, if the reason is, 
 that he has been restrained by the law of order from 
 being him^self an administrator. Sins, however, like 
 these, bring their own punishment, and defeat their 
 own end. Who could object to any holy man giving 
 the bread and wine, in the name of Christ, to his 
 prayerful and beheving friends, if there were no 
 ordained or responsible Pastor near? or to his 
 baptizing any of their cliildren, in case of like or 
 equal necessity ? All this is special ; but as to the 
 RULE which has been acknowledged from the begin- 
 ning, aU the harmonies of Scripture, and all the 
 instincts and intuitions of God's people, are on its 
 side. It is a case which has hardly needed the 
 investigations of exegesis or of reason : the Christian 
 conscience has spoken out on the subject at once. 
 Serious and sincere believers in all ages have been 
 willing to receive the sacraments from those only 
 who had been separated to the work of the Ministry, 
 and were ex officio the received expounders of Chris- 
 tian doctrine. 
 
 However levellers have endeavoured to show that 
 this service is nothing more than a feast, which any 
 two or three of their own will might institute, the 
 soul alike of " babe '' and '^ father " has spurned the 
 doctrine, if even for a while the reasoning faculty 
 might halt or waver. If the Pastor were not there, or 
 if his heart and will were not there ; if the people were 
 not gathered together " with Ids spirit -" they have 
 
ADMINISTRATORS OF SACRAMENTS. 389 
 
 felt, more perhaps tlian they have seen, that in this 
 case the ordinance was vitiated ; nay, that it was 
 void. The administration of the Lord^s Supper to 
 the Societies by the early Wesleyan Preachers was in 
 harmony with the doctrine of these pages; for the 
 Preachers Avere their Pastors. 
 
 So it ever will be, unless human nature should alter 
 entirely : for private Christians, or Christians occa- 
 sionally exercising their teaching gifts, to administer 
 the sacraments, is contrary to the order or 
 Christ's church in all ages ; while to administer 
 in wilful opposition to him who watches over the 
 souls of the whole, and for a selfish purpose, instead 
 of being the seal of faith and charity, is the seal of 
 division, and leaves the perpetrator to the righteous 
 anger of the Omniscient Head of the church, as that 
 anger is revealed against disturbers and dividers of 
 His household ; and that, too, apart from whatever 
 guilty passion of pride, jealousy, or envy, may, on 
 its own grounds, have equally incurred that most just 
 wrath. 
 
 § VII. It is theirs to exercise rule or dis- 
 cipline IN the admission of members, and in the 
 censure or expulsion of the unfaithful and 
 
 UNHOLY. 
 
 If no controversy had ever arisen from other con- 
 siderations, it could not be doubted whether all this 
 might not be deduced from any of the titles by which 
 a Minister is designated. As a Pastor, how can he 
 tend a flock without separating therefrom all who are 
 corrupted and cannot be amended ? As a Teacher, 
 or expositor of the law of Christ, how can he 
 acquiesce in the misapprehension, or slurring by 
 
390 SCRIPTUEE TESTIMONY. 
 
 popular gloss, of that law. As an Overseer, why 
 should he overlook a spiritual community, unless he 
 be able to ward off danger and remove infatuation ? 
 As a Watchman of souls, who must give account unto 
 the King who placed him in that position, how shall 
 he be able to discharge his function, unless he be able 
 to take away from the fellowship of behevers those 
 who, by their sins of flesh and spirit, are perilling 
 the very souls respecting which the account will have 
 to respond? As a Ruler over God's household, a 
 Euler over " many things,'^ and made such by reason 
 of having faithfully used the talents which were pre- 
 viously given, how shall he retain even a shadow of 
 that distinction, if he be merely the organ of a com- 
 munity ? As to the declarations of Scripture, what 
 can be plainer? "Tor your obedience is come 
 abroad unto all men/' (Eom. xvi. 19;) the context 
 showing that it is not merely obedience to the faith, 
 but to persons : " His inward affection " (that is, of 
 Titus) "is more abundant toward you, whilst he 
 remembereth the obedience of you all, how with fear 
 and trembling ye received him :" (2 Cor. vii. 15 :) 
 A Bishop must be "one that ruleth weU his own 
 house, having his children in subjection with all 
 gravity ; for if a man know not how to rule his own 
 house, how shall he take care of the church of 
 God?'' (iTim. iii. 4, 5.) 
 
 The argument here is from the less to the greater ; 
 and is in harmony with the tone of St. Paul's other 
 Epistles, especially those to the Corinthians. A good 
 father, in ruling his family, will pay the greatest 
 respect to all the reasonable wishes and expostulations 
 of his family, and especially those of the wife of his 
 
SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY. 391 
 
 bosom ; and generally he will be able to go on in 
 accordance with them, when any given matter is fully 
 considered: but a case will arise, at some time, in 
 which he will have to act decisively upon some point 
 affecting either the whole house, or the position of 
 some one in it ; and, after having w eiglied every tes- 
 timony that judgment or feeling could give, to 
 take the responsibility of that act upon himself, if 
 even there be only a minority to acquiesce in it : for 
 the Father of all, who created the paternal relation 
 amongst men, has made it impossible to transfer to 
 any man, or any whole family, the paternal obligation. 
 A Christian father, in such a case of difficulty, can 
 only offer the Psalmist^s prayer, wliich is often 
 sublime from its very anxiety : " I flee unto Thee to 
 hide me. Teach me to do Thy will ; for Thou art my 
 God : Thy Spirit is good ; lead me into the land of 
 uprightness/^ (Psalm cxliii. 9, 10.) So it is in the 
 church of God. In ordinary times, and on all 
 ordinary matters. Pastors and office-bearers will 
 mutually agree. But there are other periods when 
 truth and purity are imphcated ; and, however dimly 
 this may be seen by the community, entangled with 
 questions of social, friendly, personal, or political 
 interest, when a pastoral decision, in respect of a 
 person declared by all to be guilty, must be pro- 
 nounced, and the obligation it involves cannot be 
 shared, either, with any number of men. A.gain : " A 
 man that is an heretic^' [a faction-leader] "after the first 
 and second admonition reject;"^ knowing that he that 
 
 * Vitringa deems this word to be very strong, — the word used by 
 Greek writers when speaking of the repudiation of a wife ; which con- 
 sisted of exclusion from her home, and all her former iutercoui-se. 
 
392 RULE IS MORE THAN CHAIRMANSHIP. 
 
 is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of 
 himself." (Titus iii. 10, 11.) That is, " Where the fact 
 is palpable, and a party-leader does not disavow his 
 character and design, then, Titus, proceed upon 
 that fact, and separate the offender from the sound 
 part of the community ; for what need of further testi- 
 mony or procedure, when the sinner falls from his unity 
 with the body, and condemns himself?" "Obey them 
 that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves : 
 for they watch for your souls, as they that must give 
 account, that they may do it with joy, and not with 
 grief." (Heb. xiii. 17.) If, by the Apostle's direc- 
 tion, some in the church are to rule, and others to 
 submit and obey, it is inconceivable that every parti- 
 cular of inward regulation should be carried by the 
 suffrage of the community. 
 
 On the democratic theory, all that is needed is, a 
 person who shall perform the twofold function of 
 expounding Scripture and presiding in the midst of 
 the people, simply to keep order in their deliberations, 
 and execute their will. But this presents no idea of 
 rule wliich would satisfy a simple and honest mind. 
 Invest your chairman as you will with all the outward 
 signs of office, and keep up the phraseology of defer- 
 ence as you may, still, if he cannot, through an 
 adverse vote of headstrong youths, or prejudiced 
 parties, put away sin, or reduce schism, he rules not. 
 Dr. Wardlaw repudiates the notion that in his scheme 
 all the people are rulers, and that no place is left for 
 any one in the church to be obeyed ; but I look in 
 vain to him, or to others of the same denomination, for 
 any logical warding off of this denied consequence. 
 Brethren of this school affirm, of course, that the 
 
ETCHAED BAXTER. 393 
 
 Pastors may not do anything without the concurrence 
 of the people ; and, assuming this to be admitted^ — ■ 
 not in all the length and breadth of the sentiment 
 granting it, — may I ask, if the converse of the propo- 
 sition is practically allowed to be true ? which is, that 
 the people shall do nothing without the consent of 
 the Pastors. Assui-edly it is not; and all that a 
 faithful man can do, when crippled in action by an 
 adverse majority, is not to save the observance of 
 Christ's law, but to save his peace of conscience by 
 retiring from such a flock. What becomes, then, of 
 even the doctrine of mutual concurrence ? Richard 
 Baxter, who by the troubles and controversies of his 
 times was obliged to study the subject, and who 
 brought as much piety and understanding to bear 
 upon it as any of his great compeers, has the follow- 
 ing note upon the text last quoted : — " God that hath 
 made the Bishops or Pastors to be your guiding 
 Eulers in church aflPairs, obligeth you to obey them, 
 and to submit yourselves to their government, and 
 not to live unruly or as in confusion : for the charge 
 of watching for your souls is committed to them so 
 far as belongeth to their office, by teaching publicly 
 and privately, and personally watching over the state 
 and conversation of every single person to their 
 power, and instructing, exhorting, reproving, com- 
 forting ; entrusted with the seals of the administra- 
 tion of God's covenant, and with your public church 
 communion, by judging of men's capacity, and receiv- 
 ing or excluding, binding or loosing, by the power of 
 the keys. And of all this they must give account to 
 God ; which, as it will be terrible to them if they be 
 unfaithful, so it will be to you if their faithfulness be 
 
394 EICHAED BAXTER. 
 
 without success; wliicli else will be to tlie joyof tliem and 
 you. And tliej have not any constraining power of the 
 sword, and can govern and profit you only as voluntary 
 by your own consent : and therefore, as you love your 
 comfort, and regard them and their labours and com- 
 fort, obey them, by obeying God's word which they 
 
 preach Note, that God having trusted the Pastors 
 
 by office with church government by the keys, it is very 
 false that the people should govern it by vote : though 
 it is true that, being governed but as voluntaries by 
 their Pastors, their consent is needful to their subjec- 
 tion, and to their profit and salvation.^' At greater 
 length still in his public documents and in his other 
 works did this eminent man testify, as we shall further 
 see, on this subject:^ and the most eminent and 
 learned interpreters are on his sidet in the exposition 
 
 * See Note (B), Appendix. 
 
 t Oq this point it is curious to take and translate the testimonies 
 as they rise in Poole's "Synopsis." " Obey them: not only in 
 matters of evangelical doctrine, but in those belonging to government." 
 — Grotius (Dutch Reformed). " Acquiesce in the rectitude of their 
 counsels." — Calvin (Genevan). " To Bishops, without exception, 
 we must render obedience after the same manner as unto parents, or 
 the Lord; although they may be hard and severe. (Eph. vi. 5; 
 Col. iii. 20; 1 Peter ii. 18.)" — Estius (Romish). "For as we 
 must obey the King and our parents, not absolutely, but so far as 
 they do not command anything contrary to the precepts of Christ ; so 
 the same kind of obedience must be rendered to Pastors." — Cameron 
 (French Protestant). "We must obey them next unto God." — 
 Junius (Dutch Protestant). " And submit yourselves : show to them 
 such honour, as those who are less show to those who are greater ; 
 for this the Greeks often express by vire'iKw." — Grotius. 
 
 So also, elsewhere : " By the words TreideaOe, vTreUere, the defer- 
 ence is indicated which yields to the admonition of others, and sub- 
 mits to be led by their precepts." — Bretschneider and Kuinoel, in 
 Bloomfield, ad loc. 
 
 " 'Hyovfievos, iu verse 7 above, is clearly used in the sense of 
 
THE EPISTLES. 395 
 
 of tlie same text. The line of teaching which we find 
 in the places of Scripture just quoted and dwelt upon, 
 is sustained by the whole tenor of the apostolical 
 Epistles. There is no correspondence or likeness 
 
 Teachers, who were, ia fact, the guides or leaders of the Christian 
 community. If there he any difference in this case between TreidearOe 
 and inreiKeTe, the first has reference to positive obedience in regard to 
 any directions given them ; the second prohibits any opposition to 
 the Teachers, in the measures which they might adopt to promote the 
 improvement and the order of the religious community." — Moses 
 Stuart, Co7n. in loc. 
 
 " Obey them in those rules and directions which they are autho- 
 rised by Christ to give you, and submit yourselves (to them) with 
 a becoming respect, even though their office should sometimes oblige 
 them to make such addi'esses to you as may for the present be dis- 
 agreeable to you Behave towards them, therefore, whilst they are 
 
 pursuing the several duties of it, in such a manner, that they may do 
 it with joy, and not with inward groaning and discom-agements arising 
 from your unkind treatment, or from such other irregularities of your 
 conduct as may require them to interfere by methods of severity." — 
 Doddridge (Congregational). 
 
 Modern Congregational Ministers have likewise used language 
 on this subject which, to some Wesleyans, would be not a little 
 startling. Thus, Dr. Davidson: "In meetings of the church, no 
 MEMBER should SPEAK Without 'permission of the Elders ; nor con- 
 tinue to do so, when they impose silence. The Elders give and 
 "WITHHOLD liberty OF SPEECH, when the church is assembled. In 
 such meetings no member should oppose the judgment of the presid- 
 ing Elders." — " Ecclcs. Pol.," p. 274. The Rev. John Angell James : 
 "All the proceedings at a church-meeting should either emanate 
 directly from the Faster, or from others by his previous knoioledge 
 
 and consent iV^o member should presume to bring forward a 
 
 candidate in opposition to the opinion of the Pastor." — " Christian 
 Fellowship," p. 172. The late Rev. John Ely, of Leeds: "The 
 Pastor is not the despot, but he is the ruler. Authority must be 
 maintained, not with the high, but with the firm, hand. He must 
 expound law, and demand its administration. If his rule be dis- 
 obeyed, he must lay down his pastorate." — " Posthumous Works. 
 Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 1848." 
 
396 DIOTEEPHES. 
 
 between dp'x^u'^olfjLrjv and irotfirjv, between '' chief" and 
 " under shepherd/^ as mentioned in St. Peter^ unless 
 tending and keeping pure tlie flock by the exclusion 
 of unworthy members be implied in both cases; 
 with this Divine arrangement, however, understood, — 
 that the under shepherd shall be ruled and judged by 
 the higher. (1 Peter ii. 25, and v. 4.) 
 
 St. John, in his Third Epistle, declares, in reference 
 to the ambitious Diotrephes, "If I come, I will 
 remember his deeds wliich he doeth, prating against 
 us with malicious words : and not content therewith, 
 neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and for- 
 biddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the 
 church." (Verse 10.) That there was a place of pre- 
 eminence in every church occupied by several, we 
 here need not argue, it is proved elsewhere : that this 
 Diotrephes was an Elder, is evident from the function 
 which he exercised : and the note of reprehension in 
 the preceding verse, that he " loved to have the pre- 
 eminence," points to the fact, that either he had no 
 right to the eldership, that is, the oversight of the 
 people, he having assumed it ; or that he was over- 
 bearing, scheming, and tyrannical in respect to his 
 fellow-Elders, of whom Gains (probably of Corinth, 
 and therefore his church the church of Corintli, Eom. 
 xvi. 28 ; 1 Cor. i. 14) was one. Now the Apostle 
 does not remind the church of their supposed right 
 of resisting excommunication : but he declares his 
 intention of dealing summarily with an individual 
 who had unrighteously, that is, in a way contrary to 
 Christ^s law, exercised the Elder's function, by casting 
 out members from the church who entertained and 
 brought forward on their journey the true preachers 
 
397 
 
 of the Gospel ; and, in the spirit of this conduct, 
 setting himself against, that is, above, the Apostles. 
 He may have been, as Grotius and Hammond think, 
 a Gentile who Mas opposed to countenancing the 
 Christian Jews who adhered to their ancient customs. 
 In St. John's Epistle, then, we have the Pastor joasto- 
 riivi, the embodiment of a power for censuring and 
 controlhng the misrule of the Ministry, but not the 
 advocate of a plan for directing the most responsible 
 act of that Ministry by a public vote. The people 
 here were treated unjustly and oppressed, and an 
 authority above their own was brought in for their 
 protection. In the charge to the Angel of His church 
 of Ephesus, the Saviour approves the act of that 
 Pastor, in that he could not bear with the evil, and 
 tried those who said they were Apostles, and were 
 not ; and, in the charge to the Angel of the church 
 of Thyatira, the same office-bearer is reproved for 
 suffering the woman Jezebel (perhaps called so from 
 her resemblance to the wife of Ahab) to teach 
 and to seduce others to fornication and idolatry ; 
 (Rev. ii. 2, 20 ;) — all in harmony with preceding 
 statements. The guilty parties might have pleaded 
 that they acted from conviction, and had the opinion 
 of the majority on their side : but this plea is not 
 admitted by the Lord, who holds the Pastor to 
 account for this disorder. 
 
 With regard to St. Paul, to quote from him all 
 that refers directly and by implication, in general 
 spirit, and in precept, to the point before us, would 
 be to transcribe a great part of the Epistles to the 
 two churches of Corinth and Thessalonica. The case 
 of the incestuous Corinthian we have considered. In 
 
398 KEYSj HOW APPLIED. 
 
 2 Thess. iii. 14, he commands that the contumacious 
 person be noted and shunned : in Eom. xvi. 17, that 
 the authors of divisions and offences contrary to the 
 truth should be marked and avoided : and in 1 Cor. 
 V. 11, there is an express direction, that if any man 
 " called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an 
 idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extor- 
 tioner; with such an one^^ to have no communion, 
 "no not to eat." These precepts, however they 
 may solicit the concurrence of the community, and 
 however some of them may indicate a lighter censure 
 than absolute excommunication, are not in their 
 actual apphcation made contingent upon that concur- 
 rence. St. Paul demands that these things be done. 
 There is a direct ministerial apphcation of the law of 
 Christ, — the law of purity. 
 
 § YIll. Here, however, we may again be met with 
 an objection already in part refuted. " True it is," 
 some will say, " the Apostles, as vicegerents of Christ, 
 anight have power to bind and loose without respect to 
 the opinions or wills of others ; they had the keys of 
 the kingdom of heaven, and God ratified their acts of 
 opening and shutting : but can this power be claimed 
 for ordinary and uninspired Elders?" 
 
 The fallacy which lurks in tliis question, lies in 
 confounding the inspiration of the Apostles, — by 
 which alone they determined the conditions on which 
 men were admitted into, or excluded from, the king- 
 dom of heaven, and by which they alone bound or 
 loosed the fundamental statutes of government for 
 Christ's church, — with their personal acts, as Ministers 
 of Christ, and Shepherds of His flock. In the first 
 character they are unapproachable : there has been 
 
KEYS, HOW APPLIED. 399 
 
 none, there can be none, like them. In the second 
 character they neither acted absolutely nor infallibly : 
 not absolutely ; for they took the judgment of others 
 along with them, and proceeded, not from a miraculous 
 insight into human character, but from the warrant 
 of evidence obtained in the usual methods : not infal- 
 libly; for the errors of both Paul and Peter are 
 recorded in the sacred volume. The plain answer to 
 the question is, therefore, that so far as the Apostles, 
 ministerially and as Christian Elders, used their own 
 power, which was supernaturally given to them ; so 
 far we, or any other lawfully-called Ministers of 
 Christ, not only may, but must, use it : and it 
 would be well for all speculators on this point to 
 mark, that jud in pro2Jortion as they deny to modern 
 Fasfors, called of God, the ohligation to fulfil 
 the ordinary nmiisterial duties which the Apostles 
 fulfilled, and the right of that mild authority , involved 
 therein, which the Apostles claimed, in that very 
 proportion they withdraw the^n from that preserice of 
 Christ — that special blessing — which is promised in the 
 primary commission. The conclusion is irresistible : 
 either the ordinary duties of the Apostles must be 
 now done, and their common ministerial authority 
 must be now exercised, or there are no persons on 
 earth to whom the words, " Lo, I am with you alway," 
 apply, and no church on earth which can claim the 
 comfort which that promise supplies. Besides this, — 
 requesting the reader to refer once more to the second 
 chapter, — we must again protest against the confound- 
 ing the term " church,^' and the phrase " kingdom of 
 heaven,'' as though they meant one and the same 
 thing. Simon was received into the church at Sama- 
 
400 KEYS, HOW APPLIED. 
 
 ria by the Evangelist Philip; but this Simon was 
 subsequently proved to have no part or lot in the 
 matter, and consequently to have no place in the 
 kingdom. And how proved ? Not by Peter and John 
 having an absolute knowledge of what was in man, 
 apart from outward evidence ; but from the enormous 
 impiety disclosed in his proposing to make the gift 
 of the Holy Ghost an article of traffic and means of 
 aggrandisement. 
 
 In the awful judgment of Ananias and Sapphira, 
 the Apostle Peter seems to have a moment^s super- 
 natural discernment granted him only in the case 
 of the first-mentioned : (if, indeed, here he had not 
 been led to make the public inquiry through a pre- 
 vious and partial knowledge, from individual sources, 
 of the facts of this man's sin ; for there is nothing in 
 the sacred narrative to preclude the notion of a pre- 
 vious faint rumour of it :) and when his wife came in, 
 she was convicted on her own evidence, and sentence 
 was pronounced by the Apostle on the unhappy pair, 
 through the impulse on his mind of a Divine influence. 
 The Apostle Paul judged by evidence of the inces- 
 tuous Corinthian, before he put him away from the 
 church : he did not discover the fact of the sin by any 
 voluntary exercise of the gift — for most likely he had 
 it not — of the discerning of spirits : there was d^fama 
 clamosa, " it was commonly reported,^^ and, the matter 
 being sought into, the sin was not denied. If the 
 whole apostolical college did not deal with the churches 
 by evidence as we do, but rather with the constant 
 use of infallible knowledge as to men and minds, 
 how can we suppose they would either have allowed a 
 hypocrite to enter, or have suffered liim to remain, if 
 
KEYS, HOW APPLIED. 401 
 
 by chance he had entered? If the power of the 
 keys is to he spoken of as applying to the admission 
 of persons into, and the exchision of them from, the 
 church; then, even in tlie Apostles' hands, it is only 
 a subordinate power, and ratified as to its application 
 to the kingdom of heaven, only on condition that the 
 act shall be in accordance with those infallible deci- 
 sions of the Holy Ghost, which, in their inspired 
 moments, they were enabled — indeed, prompted — to 
 give. In Matt, xviii. 18, their original charter, ''Ocra 
 eav SrjaTjre, *■'' Whatsoever ye shall bind,"' &c., did 
 not, as we have before seen, comprehend persons, but 
 things;^ that is, principles, laws, statutes : it is their 
 doctrinal decision which binds or looses as to the 
 kingdom of heaven ; their ministerial act only which 
 admits to, or shuts out of, the church : so far is the 
 Lord from giving, even to His Apostles, the awful 
 power of admitting to, or excluding any one from, 
 life eternal. " He openeth, and no man shutteth ; 
 and shutteth, and no man openeth.'''' (Kev. iii. 7.) 
 The Apostles and Evangelists, as extraordinary men, 
 had to do with churches, the members of which were 
 often extraordinarily gifted; we, who are ordinary 
 Pastors, have to do with those that are ordinarily 
 gifted : the relation between the two component parts 
 of the Christian body is perfectly analogous, the reci- 
 procal influence identical. They did not exclude 
 offenders without trial of their guilt by their flock ; 
 nor do we : but they did not make the wiU of the 
 majority, as to their retention or exclusion, the abso- 
 
 * " Sed hoc obstat, quod Christus nan dicat 'iaovs, quoscunqne, sed 
 '6<ra, qucEcnnqne : nnde patet,ipst(m de rebus loqui, nan de persouis." 
 — VlTRINGA, p. 754. 
 
 D D 
 
402 ANTIQUITY. 
 
 lute rule; neither do we. They carried with them 
 the judgments of the wisest and best in all their acts, 
 as far as it was possible, taking care, however, to 
 assert that the faction-leader was subverted of him- 
 self, ipso facto, and saving their peculiar obligation 
 to answer to their Lord for the conservation of His 
 truth and the purity of His household. This is the 
 position which, so far as the analogy before mentioned 
 holds, we fain would take. If men recoil from having 
 the keys put into the hands of modern Ministers, 
 simply on the ground that these last are devoid of 
 supernatural powers, and therefore would have them 
 put into the hands of the whole community, whose 
 faculties of conscience and spiritual judgment, it is 
 only fair to infer, are yet further removed from the 
 supernatural; and thus give the people the opportunity, 
 by their numbers, of carrying it against the Pastorate ; 
 how, supposing the scriptural argument were in abey- 
 ance, is the cause of democratic rule to be main- 
 tained on the high ground of purity? And, what 
 is of far more consequence, how is Christ mag- 
 nified, and His truth and law upheld, especially in 
 times when both are in peril from popular theories 
 and popular excitement? If modern Pastors are 
 exhorted, and very properly so, to imitate the Apo- 
 stles in piety, let them not be harshly judged for 
 following, as far as possible, the same high examples 
 in fidelity. 
 
 § IX. As to Christian antiquity, which we only men- 
 tion because those who have gone from us have sought 
 to draw special pleas from it, — alleged usages, — in their 
 own defence ; even the earliest authentic testimonies 
 are aU on the side of this distinction between pastoral 
 
ANTIQUITY. 403 
 
 and popular responsibility, which we so plainly recog- 
 nise in holy Scripture. Ignatius, Irenseus, and 
 Justin scarcely refer to the subject of church cen- 
 sures, or to the admission and exclusion of members. 
 Tertullian, who lived chiefly in the second century, 
 makes mention of the last, simply with respect to its 
 influence on the indi\adual, though in such a con- 
 nexion as to leave it to be inferred that the sentence, 
 and act of excision, was with the '' prohati seniores."^ 
 There is no testimony, except that which the '^ Apo- 
 stolic Canons " afford, previous to the age of Cyprian, 
 which can be brought as decisively authoritative on 
 the point. Here, however, the testimony from all 
 sources is uniform. Though Cyprian himself, more 
 than contemporary Pastors, in dealing largely with 
 lapsed members and restoring them to the church, as 
 well as in excluding others, wa^wont to consult his 
 co-Presbyters and his flock ; yet, notwithstanding, 
 this exercise of administrative functions was not abso- 
 lutely determined by the want of their concurrence, as 
 we have seen in the Appendix to chapter x. ; but by 
 the manifest bearing of the case on some divine and 
 revealed law, of which, in a crisis, he was bound to be 
 the faithful expositor. Throughout that age, and 
 onwards, as Bingham largely shows, the Bishop, or a 
 Presbyter acting under his direction, was the excom- 
 municating authority. The excommunication was 
 considered lawfully to take effect, first, when the 
 guilt of the party was acknowledged by his own 
 confession; secondly, when witnesses deposed to the 
 fact on which it was founded ; thirdly, when it was 
 
 * Jpolog., cap. 39. 
 2 D 2 
 
404 ANTIQUITY. 
 
 SO notorious and palpable, and contrary to the canons, 
 as made it excommunication ipso facto. " That all 
 the power of discipline was primarily lodged" (what- 
 ever co-deliberation might be provided, or sought 
 for) ^^in the hands of the Bishop, as all other 
 offices of the church, is a matter uncontested, and 
 evident from the whole foregoing history and account of 
 the practice of the church. For the canons always speak 
 of the Bishop, at least in conjunction with his ecclesi- 
 astical senate, his presbytery, as cutting off offenders 
 from the church, and imposing penance upon them ; 
 and then again examining their proficiency, and either 
 lengthening their penance, or moderating it, by his 
 indulgence ; and, finally, admitting them to the com- 
 munion of the church by absolution.""^ In like 
 manner is the argument from the history of the 
 primitive church summed up by Vitringa : " Doubt- 
 less, as with the Hebrews this power was equally in 
 the hands of the consistory of Elders, and in those 
 of the President of the single synagogue or school ; so 
 the function of excommunicating is in like manner, 
 from the most ancient times, exercised by the Bishops 
 and Presbyters of the Christian church.f This we 
 understand from the words of Selden just noted, J 
 and gather the same from all the canons of the ancient 
 church whatsoever, as many as treat of this argument : 
 besides which, the highest reason demands the same. 
 In place of a specimen look at the canons of the 
 Councils of EKberitanus [Elvira] and Nice. The 
 same practice continues to this very time in all the 
 
 * Bingham's "Antiquities," book xix., cap. iii., § 1. 
 
 f Fide Tertul., " ApoL," xxxix. 
 
 X De Syned., lib. i., cap. xxxviii., p. 143. 
 
EAELY PROTESTANTISM WITH US. 405 
 
 well-ordered cliurclies of Christ; wherefore he who 
 needs to be further detained to have this position 
 further proved or illustrated, had need to be one of 
 the most leisurely of men/"'^ 
 
 § X. In practically maintaining this principle 
 against all schisms and agitations, the Wesleyan Con- 
 ference has been charged by many as standing alone 
 among the churches of the Eeformation. The charge 
 is preposterous, and can only have been made in 
 ignorance of the historical facts that can be readily 
 brought to bear upon the case. It has acted upon the 
 principles maintained by the best and purest Protest- 
 ant churches, when these churches were in their most 
 earnest condition — their Ministers and members risking 
 martyrdom — of protest against Kome. If men insist 
 that Protestant churches, as they are now, must be 
 taken as the standard of appeal, such an illogical 
 shift hardly deserves the trouble necessary for 
 exposing it. The term " Protestant " belongs most 
 fitly, as a positive designation, to those whose first 
 opposition to Eome originated the term : and " Pro- 
 testant Confessions " are those documents which record 
 their views of the decisions of God^s word, on all sub- 
 jects on which those Confessions treat. Many churches 
 now called " Protestant " may hardly more justly claim 
 that distinction, than some modern communities and 
 publications may take the name of " Wesley an :" 
 so diflerent from, and opposed to, their respective 
 professed archetypes are they both. Some churches 
 have utterly lost their discipline, some are Erastian, 
 some are sunk in Rationalism, some have denied the 
 
 * Be Vet. Synag., lib. iii., pars i., p. 767, ad verba, " Khniriem ceu 
 apud Hebrcpos," Sfc. 
 
406 PROTESTANTISM WITH US. 
 
 Lord that bought them : they are utterly out of court 
 in this inquiry ; but, while repudiating their authority, 
 I gladly accept the suffrage of early, energetic, loving, 
 and healthful Protestantism; and there is hardly a 
 Protestant Confession, if any other, but what con- 
 firms the doctrine of these pages."^ Calvin, the Genevan 
 Eeformer, asserted our principle, though he created a 
 new class of Presbyters, in order, with some colour of 
 deference to democratic principles, to carry it out : nay, 
 apart from those Elders, and on his own responsibility, 
 he asserted it, as will appear in that episode of his 
 personal history which is noticed by Hooker in the 
 Preface to his "Ecclesiastical Polity," as well as by 
 his biographers, and which, as it may further illustrate 
 the subject, I here insert, in my own words, with some 
 additional particulars. 
 
 § XL Calvin, being obliged to leave Prance, came 
 to Geneva, soon after the Eomanist Bishops and Clergy 
 had left that city, because of the determined attitude 
 of the inhabitants in favour of the Gospel. At that 
 time the form of their civil government was popular, 
 and Geneva was a free city ; and, as to spiritual regi- 
 men and order, in this transition state, the people did 
 what their religious instructors and guides coidd allure 
 them to do. Calvin was admitted Preacher and 
 Divinity-Eeader among them ; and, on his admission, 
 he was soon made to see how dangerous it was that 
 the well-being of that Church should be made abso- 
 lutely to depend upon the taste and liking of the com- 
 munity, many of whom were necessarily uninstructed 
 in the things of which they were required to form a 
 
 * See Note (C), Appendix. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 407 
 
 judgment. Accordingly, joining with himself two 
 other of the Protestant Ministers, they, after much 
 trouble, persuaded the people to bind themselves by 
 oath, tirst, never to admit the Papal religion again ; 
 secondly, to live in obedience to such a scheme of eccle- 
 siastical reirimen as they, the Ministers of God's word, 
 had drawn up for the purpose. When this scheme 
 was enforced and put in practice, it became a cause 
 of disagreement between Geneva and neighbouring 
 churches ; and this disagreement, for political reasons, 
 the Genevese could ill afford to endure, so that the 
 latter began to repent of their acquiescence and oath. 
 Calvin and his associates, however, resolutely refused 
 to administer the holy communion to those who would 
 not quietly, without contradiction and murmur, sub- 
 mit unto the order to which they had bound them- 
 selves ; and for this, these firm Pastors suffered banish- 
 ment from the town. A few years after, the places of 
 one or two of the Ministers being vacant, the people 
 were more desirous of taking back to themselves this 
 learned Preacher from those who then enjoyed his 
 labours, than before they were willing to be rid of 
 him. Both the Senate and the Ecclesiastical Convo- 
 cation, therefore, recalled Calvin ; but, before he con- 
 sented again to become tlieir Pastor, he required their 
 solemn assent to a form of discipline, of which the 
 main features were these : — Pirst, a standing Eccle- 
 siastical Court ; second, the Ministers to be per- 
 petual Judges in that Court; third, two of the 
 people, to every one of the Ministers, to be annually 
 chosen, to sit and have a voice with them : these to 
 have the charge of the manners and morals of the 
 citizens, A\itliout respect of persons, and to administer, 
 
408 JOHN CALVIN. 
 
 wlien needful, ecclesiastical censures, even to excom- 
 munication. This proposition was variously received, — 
 by many of the Ministers with doubt, — by many of the 
 laity with dislike ; but, as they must needs have the 
 aid of Calvin's influence, the instructions of his wis- 
 dom, and the prestige of his name, they were obliged 
 to consent, and they bound themselves by oath once 
 more. In the year 1541, however, these twice-sworn 
 men assailed the discipline again. They granted, by 
 common consent of the whole Senate, (which was the 
 civil representation of the people,) and under the town- 
 seal, a dispensation or release to one Bertelier, whom 
 the Eldership had excommunicated ; further, also, 
 absurdly decreeing that it should belong to the 
 same Senate to give final judgment in matter of 
 excommunication, and to absolve whom it pleased 
 them. 
 
 When this Decree was brought to Calvin, he is 
 reported to have said, "Before this Decree takes 
 place, my blood or my banishment shall sign it;'' 
 and, again, two days before the communion, some- 
 thing to this efi'eet : " Let me die if ever this hand 
 shall reach forth holy things to them whom the Church 
 hath judged despisers." Bertelier wisely declined to 
 appear ; and, after a quiet and orderly discharge of 
 his duty on the sacrament-day, Calvin again 
 announced his purpose to withdraw. This threw 
 the citizens again into a tumult of inconstancy : they 
 suspended the operation of their own Decree, until 
 they had heard the judgment of four Helvetian cities 
 on the case. That judgment was given in Calvin's 
 favour ; for, although they did not themselves adopt 
 the Genevan disciphne, and did not give absolute 
 
DISCIPLINE GUARDS TRUTH. 409 
 
 acquiescence to it, yet, they said, it was a dramng 
 towards the prescript of God^s word ; and they justi- 
 fied Cahin in the position which he had taken. 
 
 The Genevan regimen thus became established, but 
 not without opposition. Its claim of territorial juris- 
 diction, where no one could voluntarily withdraw 
 himself from its control, was openly and reasonably 
 disputed : in the Church of Heidelberg, which fol- 
 lowed Gualter^'s discipline, the seeds were thus sown 
 of the controversy between Beza and Erastus ; and it 
 was only when the lay Elders were made perpetual, 
 and, in consequence, became a kind of retired Minis- 
 ters or superior Deacons, as in the Church of Scot- 
 land, that the ultra-Presbyterian system worked well 
 for the religious interests of those who held it. Thus, 
 minor matters apart, in a case even where the theory 
 of Church and State united was fully held, the dis- 
 tinct obhgation of the Pastor in relation to Christ was 
 distinctly vindicated. 
 
 § XII. But to return nearer home. Sinners 
 against Clirist's law of peace often begin their sin by 
 some innovation in doctrine, by departing from, dis- 
 torting, or opposing, the truth ; and a plea on their 
 behalf will often be set up by companions who have 
 not much opportunity of examining into the bearing 
 or final issues of the heresy. "These,^"' say they, 
 " are good men, they have great zeal and piety/' and 
 by their sufTrages such advocates would fain retain 
 them in the body, however there might be wanting 
 the faintest expression of a purpose of amendment, 
 and whatever the probability might be of their subse- 
 quent convulsing and leading others astray. In the 
 Wesleyan Connexion this might easily be, and has been : 
 
410 IN SCHISM, DOCTRINE OFTEN PERILLED. 
 
 and no wonder ; for does not St. Peter warn us tliat 
 when " damnable heresies'^ are brought in, they are 
 brought in ^^ privily;" (2 Peter ii. 1;) and Jude, 
 that when deceivers creeji m, they creep in "un- 
 awares V (Jude 4.) A Leaders'-Meeting, which is 
 only a portion of a church, and not necessarily or 
 always including its most thoughtful members, — most 
 impartial, most learned in the Scriptures, — might 
 often be led by considerations of friendship, or local 
 tie, to urge such a plea as we have just mentioned, 
 and act upon it, so as to produce fatal disorder and 
 division, before a competent authority could be brought 
 to heal them ; and perhaps so as in the end to 
 cripple that authority itself. Whatever may be the 
 knowledge and wisdom in holy Scripture of some 
 Leaders^ -Meetings, and some other bodies of laity, 
 laymen are not, as their Pastors are, bound by solemn 
 and conscientious engagement to a standard, and by 
 legal, as well as by divinely-imposed, responsibility to 
 maintain the truth; and therefore may sometimes 
 regard these distinctions, out of which momentous 
 heresies are founded, as mere hair-splitting, and in 
 consequence be disposed to justify or excuse the 
 excesses which recusants run into, on the ground that 
 they have been too straitly tied. 
 
 Allowing the very best intentions to actuate the 
 laity, while they desire to make the question of an 
 expulsion — that is, in a case where the proved offence 
 arises out of a perversion of the truth — depend abso- 
 lutely upon their sentence ; yet it is, in fact, to open 
 the teaching of a church to aU the philosojDhical, fana- 
 tical, or superstitious theories and speculations, and 
 all the sliifting moods of tliinking, which prevail in a 
 
SCHISM INVOLVES ERUOR. 411 
 
 restless and self-sufficient age. I say, their sentence ; 
 for every man of sense knows that, where you have one 
 or two Ministers to ten or twenty lay persons, and 
 equal and absolute sufirage amongst them all, and 
 the vote of the majority decides, it is the sentence of 
 the laity, — there cannot be even the form of minis- 
 terial concLUTence. The mischief in such a case would, 
 in some instances, be slow and insidious ; but gene- 
 rally, when hurried on by the disaffection, and mutual 
 alienation of heart, and disorders, which connivance 
 at error would produce, truth and unity would be 
 lost together, and the ruined and disrupted commu- 
 nity would sigh, when it was too late, over its suicidal 
 folly. 
 
 If the Pastor cannot act without obtaining from 
 others a verdict of guilt respecting an offending mem- 
 ber, or an acknowledgment of that guilt on the part 
 of the offending member himself, then how can he 
 be absolute ? and if that Pastor be unduly harsh in 
 liis rule, and severe in his sentence, the scriptural 
 course, like tliat with St. John in the case of Dio- 
 trephes, — a worse one, — is to control and overrule 
 the sentence by a council of his equals, and put the 
 member in his right position. This is the Wesleyan 
 practice ; and the scriptural order tells far more 
 effectually upon the unity and true Christian dignity 
 of a chui'ch, than by first laying down a politically 
 republican platform, and then trying to correct the 
 disorders which arise out of it, when they have arisen, 
 spread, and taken effect, by a feeble appeal through 
 those who have no administrative power in favour 
 of the sovereign rights of the Lord Jesus, and the 
 harmony and subordination of His household. As to 
 
412 PREVAILING TONE OP THE BIBLE. 
 
 members wlio trample upon all law, and in their 
 divisive schemes resolutely follow their own will and 
 passion, whether they are individuals or parties, I 
 know of no age in which the church of God has not 
 regarded them as excommunicating themselves. 
 
 Thus we are brought with deepened force of con- 
 viction to our conclusion, that it is according to the 
 will and word of the great Head of the church, that 
 Pastors should have the administration of sanctions 
 and censures in His church, however it is incumbent 
 on them to carry with them the judgments of the 
 wisest and best in their flocks to the utmost degree 
 possible. No men have more natural incentives to 
 this, than the Wesleyan Ministers, who are dependent 
 on the voluntary support of their people, and none 
 have more practically acknowledged them : and though 
 many churches of the Reformation have in reality 
 departed from the principles here illustrated, especially 
 those which have little or no discipline at all, none, 
 except our own opponents, that I am aware of, have 
 ventured directly to oppose them in theory. 
 
 § XIII. On this point, too, let an unprejudiced 
 Christian adopt the course which I have ventured to 
 recommend in reference to others : let him consult the 
 tenor of his Bible as to the more abstract form of 
 the doctrine, without now touching its application: 
 let him ascertain whether the prevailing tone of sym- 
 pathy from one end to the other is in favour of the 
 multitude under authority, their jealousies, strifes, 
 discontents, or with the administrator of authority, 
 his heart-sinking, his fears, his sense of loneliness, and 
 longing for rest. Let him read of the career of Moses, 
 the meekest man, how he was beset and brow-beaten, 
 
PREVAILING TONE OF THE BIBLE. 413 
 
 and yet comforted from above ; how Saiil was driven 
 from liis royal seat, because he yielded to a popular 
 wish and sentiment, which was opposed to a decision 
 of the Divine word : let him read the patlietic plaint 
 of David in the Psalms, who cried continually to 
 God for help against the disaffected over whom he 
 was prophetic Pastor as well as King, and mark how 
 help came from the Holy Spirit in distinct answer : 
 let him read how the Prophet Isaiah threatens the 
 disobedient nation with the loss of its wise and good 
 men, as being its direst punishment ; and says, " The 
 people shall be oppressed every one by another, and 
 every one by his neighbour; the child shall behave 
 himself proudly against the ancient, and the base 
 against the honourable :" (Isaiah iii. 5 :) let him 
 ponder Christ^s exhortations to His disciples ; and, last 
 of all, the sorrows and struggles of St. Paul, often 
 standing alone amid opposers and defaulters, yet always 
 pra}ang for and receiving the spirit of power. Surely, 
 at the end of such a lesson as this, our reader would 
 give no doubtful verdict. 
 
 At a time when the hail threatens to sweep away 
 " the refuge of lies," and the waters to " overflow the 
 hiding-place," how inexpressibly precious is the tried 
 Corner-stone which God has laid in Zion for a founda- 
 tion ! The wise will say, " At all costs we w411 stand 
 here, whatever becomes of other interests ; for what 
 other interests are valuable in the advancing gloom 
 of desolating judgment?" 
 
 Our Lord has said, " A^Hiosoever heareth these say- 
 ings of !Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him to a 
 wise man, which built his house upon a rock : and 
 the rain descended, and the floods came, and the 
 
414 APPENDIX. 
 
 winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell 
 not : for it was founded upon a rock .'' (Matt. vii. 
 24, 25 :) and very remarkable it is, that both in 
 the discourse of the Prophet Isaiah, (xxviii.,) where 
 the evangelical foundation, tried by a subsequent 
 storm, is predicted, and in the Sermon on the 
 Mount, the precepts immediately preceding refer to 
 false teachers, — their shifting, false, untenable theo- 
 ries. How shall we account for this conjunction? 
 Does it not point to the fact that the individual 
 builder, and the master chui'ch-builder, are both 
 warned against the loose and shrinking sand? that 
 pastoral fidehty stands intimately connected with main- 
 taining the evangelical foundation ? that however in 
 an unique and adorable manner Christ is the founda- 
 tion, we all had need take care how we build thereon ? 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note (A), page 383. 
 
 BAXTER ON ORDINATION. 
 
 " The power of ordaining Lelongeth not, 1. To magistrates ; 2. Or 
 to private men, either single, or as the body of a church ; but, 3. To 
 the senior Pastors of the church (whether Bishops or Presbyters of a 
 distinct order, the reader must not expect that I here determine) : — 
 
 " Por, 1. The power is given by Christ to them, as is before proved ; 
 and in Titus i. 5. 
 
 " 2. None else are ordinarily able to discern aright the abilities of 
 a man for the sacred Ministry. The people may discern a profitable, 
 moving Preacher ; but whether he understand the Scripture, or the 
 substance of religion, or be sound in the faith, and not heretical, and 
 delude them not with a form of well-uttered words, they are not able 
 to judge. 
 
 "3. None else arc fit to attend to this work, but Pastors who are 
 
APPENDIX. 415 
 
 separated to the sacred office. It reqiiireth more time to get fitness 
 for it, aud then to perform it faithfully, than either magistrates or 
 people can ordinarily bestow. 
 
 "4. The power is nowhere given by Christ to magistrates or 
 people. 
 
 "5. It hath been exercised by Pastors or church-officers only, 
 both in and ever since the Apostles' days, in all the churches of the 
 world. And we have no reason to think that the church hath been 
 gathered, from the beginning till now, by so great an error as a 
 wrong conveyance of the ministerial power." — " Christian Eccle- 
 siastics," part iii., question xix. 
 
 Note (B), page 394. 
 
 BAXTER ON RECEIVING MEMBERS. 
 
 "1. It is the Pastor's office to bear and exercise the keys of 
 Christ's chm'ch : therefore, by office, he is to receive those that come 
 in ; and, consequently, to be the judge and trier of their fitness. 
 
 " 2. It belongeth to the same office which is to baptize, to judge 
 who is to be baptized ; otherv^ase INIinisters should not be rational 
 judges of their own actions, but the executioners of other men's judg- 
 ment. It is more the judging who is to be baptized, which the 
 ^linister's office consisteth in, than in the bai-e doing of the outward 
 act of baptizing. 
 
 " 3. He that must be the ordinary judge in church admissions, is 
 supposed to have both ability and leisure to make him fit, and autho- 
 rity and obligation to do the work. 
 
 " 4. The ordinary body of the laity have none of all these four 
 qualifications, much less all 
 
 "5. It is therefore as great a crime for the laity to usurp the 
 Pastor's office in this matter as in preaching, baptizing, or other 
 parts of it. 
 
 "6. And though pride often blind men, (both people and Pastors,) 
 so as to make them overlook the burden, and look only at the autho- 
 rity and honour, yet it is indeed an intolerable injury to the laity, if 
 any would lay such a burden on them which they cannot bear, and, 
 consequently, would make them responsible for the omissions or 
 
 misdoing of it to Christ their Judge It is not in the power of the 
 
 laity to keep out of their own particular church-cnnnnunion whom 
 the Pastor receiveth, because, as is said, it is his office to judge and 
 bear the keys," &c., &c. — Question Ixii. 
 
416 APPENDIX. 
 
 Also, as to EXCOMMUNICATION : — 
 
 "1. As it is the Pastor's office to judge who is to be received, so 
 also to judge who is to be excluded. 
 
 " 2. But the execution of his sentence belongeth to the people as 
 well as to himself. It is they that either hold communion with the 
 person or avoid him. 
 
 " 3. Therefore, though ordinarily they must acquiesce in the 
 Pastor's judgment, yet if he grossly offend against the law of God, 
 and would bring them, for example, to communion with heretics and 
 openly impious, and excommunicate the orthodox and godly, they 
 may seek their remedy as before" (that is, fi'om other Pastors). 
 — Question Ixiii. 
 
 More particularly, as to remedy against misrule : — 
 
 "1. It must be supposed that all church disorders and mal- 
 administrations cannot be expected to be remedied ; but many, while 
 we are sinners and imperfect, must be borne. 
 
 " 2. The first remedy is to speak submissively to the Pastor of his 
 faults, and say to Archippus, ' Take heed to the ministry which thou 
 hast received ; ' and if he hear not more privately, for the people more 
 openly to warn and entreat him ; not as his governors, but as Chris- 
 tians that have reason to regard Christ's interests and their own, and 
 have charity to desire his reformation. The next remedy is to con- 
 sult with the neighbour Pastors of other churches, that they may 
 admonish him ; not as his governors, but neighbour Pastors. 
 
 " 3. The next remedy is, to seek redress fi'om those governors that 
 have power to correct or cast out the intolerable. 
 
 " 4. The last remedy is, that of Cyprian, to desert such intolerable 
 Pastors. But in all this the people must be sure that they proceed 
 not proudly, ignorantly, erroneously, passionately, factiously, dis- 
 orderly, or rashly." — Question kiv. 
 
 Note (C), page 406. 
 
 PEOTESTANT TESTIMONIES. 
 
 BOHEMIAN CONFESSION, 
 
 " Op the heys of Christ " (as now nndei-stood). " The fourteenth 
 chapter of Ecclesiastical Doctrine is of the Lord's keys ; of which He 
 saith to Peter, ' I will give,' &c. And these keys are the peculiar 
 fmiction or ministry and administration of the power of Christ and 
 
APPENDIX. 417 
 
 His Holy Spirit, which power is committed to the chm-ch of Christ 
 and to the Ministers thereof unto the end of the world, that they may 
 not only by preaching publish the holy Gospel, (although they should 
 do this especially, that is, should show forth the word of true com- 
 fort, and the joyful message of peace, and new tidings of the favour 
 that God oflereth,) but also that to the believing and unbelieving they 
 may publicly or privately denounce or declare, — to wit, to these his 
 favour, to those his wrath ; and that to all in general, or to eveiy one 
 in particular : that they may wisely receive some into the house of 
 God, to the communion of saints, and di-ive others out from thence ; 
 and may so, through the performance of their ministry, hold in their 
 hand the sceptre of Christ His kingdom, and use the same to the 
 government of Christ His sheep. 
 
 " Therefore the condition and proper oflBce of the keys is first to 
 open and loose ; that is, in Christ to appease and still the conscience of 
 the faithful ones, and of those that turn again by repentance ; to make 
 it kno\\Ti unto them that their sins be forgiven, and to strengthen 
 them in a sure hope of salvation ; and by this means to open the king- 
 dom of heaven unto them, to give them courage against all tempta- 
 tions, and to stir up steadfastness and cheerfulness in them : and all 
 these things are done by the faithful shepherds of souls in the Lord's 
 stead ; not doing this of themselves, but upon Christ His command- 
 ment ; not by their own and proper virtue, but by Christ's, and the 
 efficacy of His word and sacraments, as those that are stewards and 
 dispensers of the mysteries of God, and Ministers only. (1 Cor. iv. 1 ; 
 2 Cor. iii. 6 ; v. 20.) In the administration of which things they 
 may use some seemly and indifferent ceremonies, (that is, which are 
 no way necessary,) such as are to lay hands, or to reach out the right 
 hand ; or else they may omit them. 
 
 " On the other side, the office and proper work of the keys of Christ 
 is to shut and bind ; that is, by the commandment of Christ ; and 
 the authority of this office, given by Him to the church, (which is 
 His power and sceptre,) to denounce against all stubborn, impenitent, 
 unbelieving, and other such like sinners, God's horrible judgment, and 
 His intolerable wrath, which no nature can abide, and His own sen- 
 tence ; and so by the word of Christ, according to the quality of the 
 offence, to reprove their sin, to sever them from the fellowship of Christ 
 our Saviour, and from the fruit and participation of the sacraments, 
 and to cast them out of the Christian church ; and, in a word, to shut 
 the kingdom of heaven upon them ; and at the length to deliver them 
 to Satan. This power of His sceptre and Spirit hath the Lord granted 
 and delivered to the holy Apostles, and, in them, to all Ministers of 
 E £ 
 
418 APPENDIX. 
 
 churches, lawfully ordained, that they might exercise it in His stead," 
 &c., &c. — Corpus et Syntagma Confesslonum Fidei, 1612. Aurel. 
 Allohr.; or, " Harmony of Protestant Confessions. By Rev. P. Hall. 
 1842," pp. 261, 262. 
 
 AUGSBURG CONFESSION, PRESENTED TO CHARLES V. IN 1530. 
 
 " Therefore whereas the question is touching the jurisdiction of 
 Bishops, civil dominion must be distinguished from ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction. Again : by the Gospel, (or, as they term it, by Divine 
 right,) Bishops, as they be Bishops, (that is, such as have the 
 administration of the word and sacraments committed unto them,) 
 have no jm-isdiction at all, but only to forgive sin ; also to know what 
 is true doctrine, and to reject such doctrine as will not stand with the 
 Gospel, and to debar from the communion of the church such as are 
 notoriously wicked, not by human force and violence, but by the word 
 of God." (l^ote hy the Editor.) " To wit, by the judgment and verdict 
 of the Presbytery, lawfully gathered together, and not by the will 
 and determination of any one man ; as was noted before in the Third 
 Observation upon the English Confession." ^Zii^., p. 272. 
 
 The " Westminster Confession," in like manner, regards the keys 
 as committed into the hands of church officers, veiling, under the con- 
 venient term "officers," the ill success of the Assembly in its attempt 
 to establish the doctrine of ruling Elders. — Hall's " Harmony of 
 Protestant Confessions." 
 
 LATTER CONFESSION OF HELVETIA. 
 
 "Therefore, the first beginning, institution, and office of the 
 Ministers is a most ancient ordinance of God Himself, not a new 
 device," non nova ordinatio, " appointed by men." (Chap, xviii., p. 
 
 243.) " Eurthermore, there is another power, — the power of office, 
 
 or ministerial power, — limited by Him who hath full and absolute 
 authority ; and this is more like a service than a dominion. Eor we 
 see that a master doth give unto the steward of his house authority 
 and power over his house ; and for that cause delivereth him the keys, 
 that he may admit or exclude such as his master will have admitted 
 or excluded." — Ibid., p. 249. 
 
 CONFESSION of ENGLAND. 
 
 " We say, also, that the Minister doth execute the authority of 
 binding and shutting, as often as he closeth up the gate of the king- 
 
APPENDIX. 419 
 
 dom of heaven against unbelieving and stubborn persons, denouncing 
 unto them God's vengeance, and everlasting punishment; or else 
 when he doth quite shut them from the bosom of the chm-ch by open 
 excommunication," &c. — Ibid., p. 267. 
 
 "It is an erroneous conceit that some maintain, that the power of 
 sacred order and the keys is given by God immediately to the body of 
 the congregation, and that they depute him who is the ^Minister to 
 execute the power which is originally in them. That power is con- 
 fined by God immediately to those w^ho are Bishops and Pastors, 
 and by and tlu'ough them belongs to the whole body, and not 
 otherwise." — The learned Joseph Mede's " Works," 1664, vol. i., 
 p. 92. 
 
 Baxter, enumerating in his controversy with the prelatical party 
 of his day the charges against the established system, says : — 
 
 " The unlawfulness they show in these particulars : — in that the 
 Judges of the Com-ts, as well as the rest, are mere laymen, (the 
 Bishop's Chancellors,) who ordinarily admonish, excommunicate, and 
 absolve : for though the King's declaration concerning ecclesiastical 
 affairs did speak against this, yet that was dead before it took place, 
 and the old com-se is now taken in aU their Courts : and what the 
 tongue of man can rationally say for laymen's exercising the power 
 of the keys, most essential to the sacred pastoral office, it is beyond 
 my reach to know. The common answer is, that lay Elders are as 
 bad : as if one man's sin would justify another's, and warrant all men 
 to subscribe to it. But yet they know : 1. That church Elders are 
 not accounted laymen, but sacred officers, by those that are for them. 
 2. That they meddle but with one parish, and that but as assistants 
 to the Pastors ; whereas the Chancellors meddle with many hundred 
 parishes, and that as the sole Judges in the Coui't (when the Bishop 
 is not there, which is the ordinary case) : indeed, I hear that, pro 
 forma, they use to get some Priest or other to pass the sentence in 
 Court when the lay Chancellor hath determined it. But this is a 
 mere juggling mockery : and if they were serious, it would confute 
 themselves, who say, that a Presbyter hath not the power of excom- 
 munication : and they justify the cause of the Presbyterians who claim 
 it (as is aforesaid)." 
 
 In the papers presented to the King, which included and recognised 
 Archbishop Usher's model, combining Presbyterianism with Epis- 
 copacy, are these proposed provisions : — 
 
 " 1. The incumbent Pastor, with the Churchwarden and Sidemen, 
 to take notice of such as live scandalously, who are to be reproved : if 
 
 2 E 2 
 
420 APPENDIX. 
 
 they cannot be reclaimed, to be presented at the next monthly synod, 
 meantime debarred access to the Lord's table. 
 
 " 2. The Suffi-agan to assemble every mouth all the Eectors of the 
 rural deanery, and conclude all matters by their suffrage, and, par- 
 ticularly, excommunication of the incorrigible. 
 
 " 3. Diocesan synod twice a year. 
 
 " 4. Provincial synod once in three years," &c., &c. — Sylvester's 
 " Life of Baxter," book i., part ii., p. 240. 
 
 The circumstance to which Baxter alludes in the place above, will, 
 no doubt, have its foundation in the Articles set forth, under royal 
 authority, by a Synod of the Clergy of the province of Canterbury in 
 London, Nov. 24th, 1584, where, on the subject of excommunication, 
 are these directing words : " Sententia ipsa vel per ArcJiiepiscopum., 
 Episcopum, Becanum, Archidiaconum, vel Prcebendarium, modb 
 sncris ordinihis et ecchsiasticd jurisdictione prceditns fuerit, in 
 propria persona prommciabitur, una cum ejiismodi frequentid et 
 assistentid, qjue ad majorem rei autkoritatem conciIia.ndam condu- 
 cere videbitur." And the Article goes on to state that, as every 
 Vicar-General, Official, or Commissary, has not taken orders, such 
 persons shall call to, and associate with, themselves, any learned 
 Presbyter, who has authority from the Bishop or Archdeacon, that he 
 may announce the sentence of excommunication. The form of 
 excommunication, too, set forth in 1571, plainly makes the authority 
 which cuts off the dead member to be that of the Bishop. — Bishop 
 Sparrow's " Canons and Constitutions," &c. 
 
 Thus, however, even in the Church of England, which is united 
 to the State, the theory of the Queen's supremacy may bring in lay 
 Doctors and Chancellors into the practice of the Ecclesiastical 
 Courts, the provision above mentioned amounts to a declaration of 
 the Scripture doctrine on the subject ; besides which, in common 
 parochial administration, where sin is not denied, or trial challenged, 
 the Minister has authority to repel any open sinner from commu- 
 nicating at the Lord's table, which itself, pro tempore, is excom- 
 munication. — See " Communion Service." 
 
 So the University of Oxford, through one of its Professors : ' Bat 
 the exercise of an authority so essentially spiritual should be com- 
 mitted, if possible, to those who bear spiritual functions ; it becomes 
 a mockery, when transferred from the assembled church into the 
 world, when executed by the civil power, and conjoined with tem- 
 poral penaJfies. And so, in proportion to its awfulncss in its extreme 
 form, should be the manifest guilt of the criminal, and the dangers of 
 
APPENDIX. 421 
 
 impunity, the solemnities with which it is accompanied, and the cau- 
 tion that should be exercised, to insui-e the righteousness of the sen- 
 tence, and remove the invidiousuess inseparable from an individual 
 exercise of such a discretion, by the association, as far as may be, of 
 the church at large, with the judgment pronounced." \_Mar(jinaL 
 headiiiy : " Not, however, that there should be no restraint on its 
 exercise, by laical assessors or other secmities, but the sentence at all 
 events should proceed from the spiritual power."] — Garbett's 
 " Bampton Lectm-e," vol. ii., "Preliminary Remai'ks" to Lect. vii., 
 p. 275. 
 
 Though somewhat different in application, the regulations of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Chm'ch in America are the same in principle 
 with oui- own. An accused member is brought before the Society, or 
 a select nmnber of the Society, to which he belongs, where the 
 Minister of that Society is the exponent of law and J udge. If the 
 accused member appeal from the decision, it must be to the Q,uarterly- 
 Meeting Conference, composed of Preachers, Leaders, Exhorters, and 
 Stewards, where a presiding Elder, who has the powers of a Suffragan 
 Bishop, is exponent and Judge. Here again, if a question of law 
 arises, it may be made the subject of appeal to the President of the 
 Conference, vvho — likewise presiding Elder — is " a Bishop ; " and 
 from thence tinally to the General Conference held every fom- years, 
 when the exponents and Judges are the collective Episcopate. The 
 appointment of Preachers, Elders, and important othce-bearers, lies 
 chietly with the presiding Elders. — Dfi. Dixon's " Methodism iu 
 America," pp. 214-227. 
 
 If, beside quoting Baxter, we seek for testimonies from any 
 other learned Pmitan of the seventeenth century, whose zeal 
 against Popish principles is too well known to require proof or 
 comment, we can hardly find a more im])artial or competent witness 
 than the Kev. David Clarkson, B.D., some time Fellow of Clare 
 Hall, Cambridge. He was contemporary with Richard Baxter, and an 
 opponent of Dean Stillingfleet on the subject of church-government. 
 Obliged by his position to take part in the controversies of those 
 days, he prepared himself for the task by laying in a store of erudi- 
 tiou which, even in that age of patient and solid acquisitions, was 
 not often equalled. Thus does he give the result of his vast historical 
 reading on the subject before us : — 
 
 " Pinally, the Presbyters are in the ancient church acknowledged 
 to have ihe power of the keys, both as to the ministration of the 
 
422 APPENDIX. 
 
 word and the sacraments, and the exercise of government and cen- 
 sures. This power they exercised either jointly, in conjunction with 
 the Bishop and Senate of Preshyters, or distinctly, in the particular 
 churches whereof they had the charge. The former power con- 
 cerning the word and sacraments is not questioned ; nor is there any 
 ground to question the latter, if some were not swayed more hy 
 the practice of their own times, than the principles and declara- 
 tions of the ancients. Chrysostom ascribes to Preshyters, not only 
 dida(TKa\iav, ' the power of order,' hut irpoa-racriav, ' the power of 
 government,' giving this as the reason why the Apostle gives the 
 same rules for the ordering both of Bishops and Preshyters : ' There is 
 but little diflference betwixt them,' says he ; 'for they are ordained both 
 to the teaching and ruling {TrpocrTaaiav) of the chm'ch.' Now that 
 irpoo-Tao-ta denotes 'jurisdiction,' or pro'sidetitiam cum pofesfate, 'pre- 
 sidency together -R-ith authority,' and is, as Hesychius renders it, 
 Kv§epv7]cns, is plain in Chrysostom himself: he tells us, the Apostle 
 Paul had ttjs olKovfxeprjs tV irpoaraaiav, ' the presidency of the 
 world,' which he elsewhere expresses by t^v olKov/j.ep7]v anaaav 
 Kv§epvuiv." 
 
 " So Theodoret declares TrpotTTacriai', 'jurisdiction,' to belong to every 
 Presbyter -. Against an Elder, especially, no less than two witnesses 
 must be admitted, because, he having iKKXrjaias TrpocrTaffiav, the 
 government of the church, and in the exercise of it often grieving 
 delinquents, they, being ill-affected to him, will be apt to bring false 
 accusations The highest act of that external power of juris- 
 diction is excommunication ; and if this was in the Presbyters' 
 power of old, no other act of that power ■ndll or can in reason be 
 
 denied them : but this the ancients ascribe to them Chrysostom 
 
 threatened some of his auditory, while he was a Presbyter, to excom- 
 municate them. To waive all of like nature insisted on by others, 
 Justinian, in the sixth age, signifies plainly that not only Bishops 
 but Presbyters might excommunicate offenders," &c. &c. — Works, 
 Wycliffe Society. London, 1846, pp. 141-2. 
 
 In the endeavours of this writer to show that the ancient epis- 
 copacy was rather parochial than diocesan, we have no further con- 
 cern than mainly to acquiesce in the reasonings adduced, and to 
 observe that, in either case, so numerous were the members of the 
 largest ancient churches, the principle of Connexionalism is affirmed ; 
 namely, that Presbyters, having separate or several charges and 
 congregations, are directed and held to account, as well as the whole 
 church, bv a superintending Presbyter or Bishop. 
 
APPENDIX. 423 
 
 The venerable Bengelius, one of the fathers of biblical criticism, 
 thus speaks respecting the Lutheran Chuixhes in his day : — 
 
 " Oui- Consistories and Synods are not insensible of existing evils, 
 though they woidd rather not adopt coercive measm-es; but, in 
 their consciences, they think those Ministers right, who desire a 
 more strict chui-ch discipline. "Whether the former ought not to 
 have the heart to put their own hand to the w^ork, is another ques- 
 tion. Now, if these gentlemen wish to show that they are convened, 
 not only according to the laws of the countiy, but also in the Holy 
 Ghost, they ought to speak out at once to the civil authorities, and 
 to say, ' Your own assumption of the power of the keys, and your 
 converting it to a mere temporal and jurisdictional right or pre- 
 rogative of your own, is the very occasion of those abominations 
 which prevail throughout the laud, in the desecration of the Lord's 
 Supper, cursing and profane swearing, lewdness, &c. ; and the plunder 
 you have thus assiuned, we awfully regard as resting with your 
 responsibility, till you choose to restore to the Ministers of Christ 
 Himself the prerogative with which He has invested them, and them 
 only.' "Were this done in the power of the Holy Ghost, it would 
 certainly work to some good effect. But were the question, ' Who 
 shall be admitted to the Lord's Supper?' decided, as it ought to be, 
 at the vestibule, so to speak, rather than within the chmx-h, then 
 would it be found necessary to begin deciding it, fii'st, with respect to 
 the Ministers themselves. The reason, however, why God pennits 
 so much corruption to take its com'se, is sm-ely because His own 
 authority and influence have ceased to be acknowledged amongst us, 
 as if there were no more for Him to do. Nevertheless, He will soon 
 come and melt down all such things into another mould, by the 
 
 refiner's fire Far from t}dng up the hands of pious Ministers, 
 
 they should addi"ess them thus : ' You have now a church committed 
 to your charge : deal with it as you expect to answer for yom-self 
 concerning it before God.' To the churches of such Ministers, they 
 ought likewise to say, ' If your Pastor refuse any of you admission to 
 the Lord's Supper, remember you cannot demand of him \\hat is 
 against his conscience ; but you are at liberty to apply to any Clergy- 
 man elsewhere, that may be willing to admit you.' " — Bexgelius's 
 Life and Writings, pp. 198, 199. By De. J.C. F.Burk. London, 1842. 
 
 WALDENSIAN. 
 
 Those who lay stress on the testimony of the W^aldenses, will do 
 well likewise to mai-k the views which their persecuted Chm-ch held 
 
424 APPENDIX. 
 
 on the subject of ministerial obligation. In their most ancient 
 document, " The Noble Lesson," wi'itten, as Mr. Faber and Mr. Elliott 
 show, soon after the close of the eleventh century, we have this 
 passage : — 
 
 " Predicar devon lo poble e istar en oracion, 
 E paiser li sovent de divina doctrina, 
 E castigar li peccant, donant a lor disciplina." 
 
 " They [the Pastors] ought to preach to the people, and be much in 
 prayer, and often feed them with divine doctrine, and chastise the 
 sinful, administeriug to them discipline." — " La Nodla Let/con," 
 417. Text from Genevan ms., as it is printed in Raynouard's 
 " Choix des Poesies des Troubadours" vol. ii., pp. 73-103. 
 
CHAPTER Xir. 
 
 MINISTERIAL QUALIFICATION. 
 
 " I CAN do all things tlirough Christ streugthening me." — St. Paul, 
 
 § I. Times are come upon us when, whatever may- 
 be the commandment of God upon the subject, 
 office will no longer be respected for its own sake, 
 but only because of the character of those who 
 fulfil it. 
 
 In the sphere of that kind of Cliristianitj which 
 dispenses with the insignia of the civil ruler, and all 
 the appliances of outward show, good men may atibrd 
 to rest content that so it should be, — content that 
 even staff and crozier, apart from wisdom and piety, 
 should only provoke a smile. 
 
 On this subject of personal godliness on the part of 
 the Minister, the best discourse would be a serious, 
 searcliing, and faitliful commentary on all the words 
 of Christ, and aU the places bearing on the subject in 
 the apostoKcal wTitings. For such a task we have no 
 space, even if we had gifts ; and must, therefore, con- 
 tent ourselves with a brief endeavour to appreciate the 
 spirit of the whole Scripture record, as it stands in 
 harmony with historical connexions. That regenera- 
 tion and holiness must form the substratum of spiritual 
 qualification, no one concerned in this subject will 
 deny. Without these there is no part in Clirist, — no 
 
426 SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 place in the kingdom of heaven^ the mysteries of which 
 have to be revealed unto men. In this case^ too^ it 
 must be a holiness inclusive of all the graces and 
 attainments which Christians are required to seek, in 
 order that example may give a double weight to pre- 
 cept. It must be a life in Christ, and a temper and 
 practice founded upon it, which shall be adequate to 
 meet all the necessities of the believer^s militant state ; 
 adequate to repel all temptations to sins of fiesh and 
 spirit, to fortify for the public and private reproof of 
 iniquity, for the declaration of the whole counsel of 
 God, and for prompt attendance on the sudden emer- 
 gencies of individuals and families, especially when 
 they are visited with sorrow and calamity ; as also for 
 grappling with the moral distractions of society, and 
 the solemnities of death ; which shall find its solace in 
 delighting in God, and maintaining a comfortable walk 
 with Him, in the absence of human applause, and amid 
 the changes and chances of this mortal hfe. The full 
 lustre of this ministerial piety, like that of the Sun 
 of Eighteousness, its Source and Author, is opened 
 out in Scripture very gradually, as if ray by ray. 
 Let us endeavour to catch a few of these as they 
 arise. 
 
 § II. Our Lord, in His Sermon on the Mount, 
 first said, "Whosoever therefore shall break one of 
 these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he 
 shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven : 
 but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall 
 be called great in the kingdom of heaven.^^ (Matt. v. 
 19.) This saying, in its conclusion, points to that 
 faithful servant who is affected by the gentlest intima- 
 tions of the Divine Master's will ; who is utterly free 
 
THE THREE WAYFAEERS. 427 
 
 from any disposition to search whether this or that 
 commandment be not relaxed^ or whether any sacred 
 yoke may not possibly be intended for the shoulders of 
 another. It represents the sanctified human nature as 
 looking upward, in a hstening attitude, for the slightest 
 breath of a commandment ; and not turning away in 
 intellectual pride to find learned excuses for a sinister 
 comphance, or no compliance at all, but rather long- 
 ing and loving to obey. Thus Christ puts a jealous 
 concern to do the whole will of God by the side of 
 the opposite temper, which is Antinomianism ; and 
 adjudges the possessor and teacher of the grace in 
 question to the highest place in the kingdom of heaven 
 on earth, — the true Pastor^s place ; leaving, by a 
 veiled phrase, the matter in doubt, whether one who 
 trifles with Christ^s least commandments, — that is, 
 with the smallest particulars and apphcations of the 
 evangelically illuminated law, — can abide in the king- 
 dom at all. Here is child-like obedience. 
 
 § III. In Matt. viii. 19, and Luke ix. 57, we have 
 another weighty precept : " And it came to pass, that, 
 as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him. 
 Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And 
 Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of 
 the air have nests ; but the Son of man hath not 
 where to lay His head. And He said unto another, 
 PoUow me. But he said. Lord, suffer me first to go 
 and bury my father. Jesus said unto him. Let the 
 dead bury their dead : but go thou and preach the 
 kingdom of God. And another also said. Lord, I 
 will follow thee ; but let me first go bid them fare- 
 well, which are at home at my house. And Jesus 
 said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the 
 
4:28 THE THEEE WAYFARERS. 
 
 plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of 
 God." Now, however these words may really bear 
 upon all Christians, the point at issue between Christ 
 and two of his accompanying wayfarers, — and, as the 
 first was a Scribe, perhaps all of them, — was, whether 
 they would follow Him in the character of teaching 
 and evangelizing disciples. The plough had to pass 
 over the hardened soil of the world; that is, the 
 Gospel of the kingdom had to be preached. The 
 first man was perhaps an eager candidate for fel- 
 lowship with Christ in His Gospel victories ; but he 
 knew little of the cost of toil, unrest, and strife, with 
 which they would have to be won. The second was 
 not indisposed to obey the Saviour^s summons ; yet 
 still he entertained the idea of a prior claim : he would 
 fain wait to close his aged father^s eyes in death, and 
 commit his body to the tomb. The third professed 
 his willingness to serve, but under a stipulation that 
 earthly affections should have their due meed and 
 homage. This was a serious journey : — to our Lord 
 Himself, for He had " steadfastly set His face to go 
 to Jerusalem " to suffer and to die ; and to the three 
 persons appealed to, for they had Hstened to the 
 momentous conditions on which alone the Gospel offer, 
 to men and Ministers, could be availing. Christ's 
 kingdom was now being founded by the emptying of 
 Himself, — by the giving of His all ; and the carrying 
 on of the redeeming and sanctifying operations of this 
 kingdom in the world, demanded that all His ser- 
 vants, the Ministers of His church, should be under 
 His absolute control ; not, indeed, compelled to a con- 
 tinual denial of all the feelings of humanity, but pre- 
 pared at any special and solemn call to sacrifice them for 
 
THE THREE WAYFARERS. 429 
 
 His sake. Such an occasion was the present ; and in 
 His prescience He knew that simihir occasions would 
 continually occur in the progress of His church, when 
 the claims of the Gospel would be called into conflict 
 with all other claims whatever; and therefore He 
 gave forth His lessons here in a form most brief, 
 prompt, and unqualified. He told the first, that the 
 Son of Man had no rest on earth ; that earthly rest 
 in His cause must not be looked for. He knew how 
 His mystic body, like Himself, would fare in after- 
 ages from the unfaithful, the fallen, and the ungodly ; 
 and would never be suffered to repose till its militant 
 was exchanged for its triumphant estate ; and there- 
 fore He cautioned the eager aspirant to consider well 
 what following Him would involve. He required the 
 second to put himself into such a relation with secular 
 concerns as that in which a living man stands to the 
 dead. He, the called one of God, must attend to the 
 concerns of hfe ; death must regulate its owai domain. 
 The dead in soul, while the world remains unregene- 
 rate, are competent to attend to the dead in body, at 
 least, so long as dead souls and dead bodies are 
 the two classes of objects between which decision 
 wavers. Christ^s servant is no longer under the power 
 of a former master. And the third is admonished 
 that the innocent yearning of nature, when the ques- 
 tion lies between a subordinate and a paramount 
 claim, must itseK give way, and be ofl'ered up to Him 
 whose infinite and unutterable love, providing all the 
 heights and depths of salvation to the submissive 
 oflercr and to others, demanded the sacrifice. Our 
 Lord saw that the first man might soon be dis- 
 couraged with toil ; that the second might find it too 
 
430 CHAEGE TO THE APOSTLES. 
 
 hard to leave a sorrowing and widowed mother ; that 
 the third might be enervated, and turned from his 
 purpose, by the indulgence of gushes of tenderness ; 
 and, therefore, at this time, when He Himself was 
 keeping back nothing, but giving up all, in wisdom 
 and love, as well as righteousness, He gave forth His 
 unalterable law. let me, and let every Minister of 
 His church, read it with serious solicitude, and learn 
 its "main import, which is negatively thus : No release 
 because of social claims, or natural affections, or popu- 
 lar custom ; and positively thus : Devotion unto 
 
 DEATH l"^ 
 
 § IV. Passing to Christ's charge to the twelve 
 Apostles in Matt, x., we may infer additional parti- 
 culars as to ministerial qualification. They are to 
 heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast 
 out devils, that is, to imbibe the spirit of their 
 Master : they are to refrain from anxious con- 
 trivances to obtain temporal support, and trust in 
 His providential arrangements in the sphere of the 
 living word, by which the workman is sustained in 
 his heaven-appointed labour, by those who derive 
 benefit from his labours. He enjoins them, as tra- 
 vellers, to utter words of peace to the households they 
 visit; as liable to persecution, not to provoke it 
 unnecessarily, yet to meet it with invincible fortitude 
 when it comes, being assured that there is nothing 
 covered, that is, veiled by calumny and malice, 
 affecting their character, but what shall be revealed, — 
 
 * See, on this subject, a beautiful paper, entitled, "The Three 
 Lessons," (Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine, January, 1852,) by the 
 Eev. W. B. Pope ; which has suggested some of the above 
 thoughts. 
 
PARABLE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 431 
 
 brought out into its beauty and light of rectitude. 
 They are to bear an unceasing testimony for the 
 truth ; to exercise faith in the promise of Divine aid 
 in testifying and preaching; to act under the con- 
 stant conviction that every step and every struggle 
 is under the omniscient oversight of Him whose they 
 were, and whom they served. They are not to give 
 way to impatient longings for peace here, but to remem- 
 ber that to sacrifice life itself in His cause, would only 
 be to resimie it with immense reward in life eternal. 
 
 § V. The parable of the Good Shepherd, as con- 
 nected with the casting of the healed man out of the 
 synagogue, likewise yields its instruction. (John x. 
 1-16.) Christ did not deny the right of the Jewish 
 Pastorate to inflict excommunication, nor did He 
 incite the people to resist its exercise; but He 
 rebuked the bigotry and selfishness with which, in 
 this instance, it was administered. He denied the 
 fitness and qualification of the Eulers for the Shep- 
 herd's office, and contrasted them with Himself, the 
 supreme and true Shepherd, with His pity for human 
 souls. He showed that the only dooe, of access to 
 God's household, and to influence therein, was the 
 doctrine of His mediatorship, — a doctrine which 
 they spurned ; that aU who ever aimed to come other- 
 wise, were thieves and robbers, between whom and 
 the members of the flock there was no sjinpathy ; 
 that He Himself was the Good Sliepherd, giving His 
 life even for the sheep : and we cannot fail to see 
 that, as the hireling with whom he stands contrasted 
 must be the false under-shcpherd, so the true one must 
 necessarily stand revealed to us in the opposite cha- 
 racteristics. " He that is an hireling, and not the 
 
432 PAEABLE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 
 
 slieplierd, whose own tlie sheep are not, seeth the 
 woK coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth : and 
 the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. 
 The hirehng fleeth, because he is an hirehng, and 
 careth not for the sheep /^ Then there must be 
 spiritual relationship between the under-shepherd and 
 the flock at large, analogous to that which subsists 
 between them all and the Chief Shepherd. "V^lien 
 this is the case, there will be no fleeing from threat- 
 ened danger, — no mean shifts to obtain personal 
 quiet at the hazard of the spiritual welfare of the 
 whole fold, — no evasion of difficulties, and leaving the 
 weak and irresolute to the ravages of the wolf of 
 heresy and unbehef, which will not spare the flock. 
 Paul the Apostle foresaw that grievous wolves would 
 enter the church at Ephesus ; but neither in the case 
 which he adduces, nor in this brought forward by our 
 Lord, are the sheep to be left to defend themselves : 
 the shepherd is to guard and defend them. Here is 
 
 HOLY COURAGE AND CONSTANCY. 
 
 And yet, beside this, there is another feature in the 
 parable, — that of quenchless concern and love for the 
 souls of men. 0, if there be a heart that can under- 
 stand these words, " I lay down my life for the sheep,"" 
 and, " Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold : 
 them also T must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; 
 and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd \' — if there 
 be a heart that can look into this ocean- depth of pity, 
 and not loathe itself for its own faint and feeble yearn- 
 ing over dying men ; or if it can regard apathy on 
 this subject as being anything else than broad and 
 palpable sin ; then it has yet to learn the first lesson 
 of the Gospel. 
 
APOSTLES^ PEECEPTS. 433 
 
 Then, while the impressions of the parable delivered 
 in the last year of His ministry are still resting in 
 the minds of the disciples, Christ, being raised from 
 the dead, gave to the contrite Peter a direct charge to 
 feed His lambs and sheep ; grounding it on the well- 
 known and thrice-obtained assurance from the Apo- 
 stle as to his love for his Lord and Master. Thus, love 
 TO Christ is the paramount affection, without which 
 the notion of a call to the ministry is an impious vanity. 
 
 § VI. Again, if we turn to apostolic instruc- 
 tion, we find it first in the general outline of the 
 characters of the Apostles. They walked by faith, 
 not by sight. They did not in thought or recollection 
 dwell so much on Christ^s sacred form, the fashion of 
 His countenance, the expression of His eye, or of His 
 gesture, as it was when He dwelt formerly among 
 them; they were rather occupied with that vast 
 world of truth and love which was opened unto them 
 by His redeeming work, — His moral glory as revealed 
 by the Spirit to the soul, the invisible realities of 
 spiritual fellowship with Him, the immunities of an 
 inward kingdom which, in every heart, was the 
 image of the kingdom which He was setting up in 
 the world, and the glorious hope of eternal life. 
 They Avere so thoroughly actuated by these, that they 
 could afford, from the happiness and elevation of their 
 personal Christianity, to repay, even to professors, cold- 
 ness with love, bitterness with a meek repl}^, anger 
 with forbearance, injustice with long-suffering; and 
 on the world they only breathed an unutterable 
 charity, in return for its multiform hatred and scorn. 
 They learned their lessons at the Cross. They brought 
 with them to their toil the shrinking sensibilities, 
 
 F F 
 
434 apostles' peegepts. 
 
 yea, the infirmities, of human nature, — quivered under 
 mental and bodily pain ; they keenly felt the ingrati- 
 tude of some, and the apathy of others, their children 
 in Christ ; they often recoiled in feeling, not in pur- 
 pose, from adverse contact with wicked and unreason- 
 able men, trembled under the terrors of temptation, 
 and bowed under the weight of physical and spiritual 
 depression. They had to resist natural appetencies, 
 and were often the subjects of anxiety in reference to 
 final salvation. All this produced a self-distrust so 
 complete, and a reliance on their invisible but present 
 Lord for grace to abide in, and testify and act for. 
 Him, so entire, that a mingled seriousness and sim- 
 plicity of character, never to be described, is thrown 
 around their actions. It is not the overawing gran- 
 deur of supernatural credentials which makes its 
 impression upon us, so much as the straightforward 
 repose of guileless, suffering, and insufficient men 
 upon that fulness of grace which living faith brought 
 within their reach. Moses, lifting liis weak hands 
 unto God, wdth Aaron and Hur by his side, is a 
 sublimer object than Joshua clothed in the panoply 
 of war. Such subHmity is that of the apostolical 
 character, and all their pastoral and evangelistic vir- 
 tues proceed from this source : and thus — w^hile their 
 heart is much larger with general philanthropy, and 
 much more sensitive in throbbing to natural sympa- 
 thies, than Avithout the Christian spirit it would be — at 
 the same time, when the law of their Lord is in ques- 
 tion, no transgressor however exalted is spared, no 
 community however powerful is yielded to, no danger 
 is feared, and death itself, in its most terrible forms, 
 is humbly and yet triumphantly braved. 
 
apostles' precepts. 435 
 
 With all this their precepts are in full accordance. 
 St. Paul warns Elders to feed the church of God which 
 He hath purchased with His own blood, — that trea- 
 sure illimitable bought at such a price, and which 
 many can ravage and rend as though it were their 
 own, or treat as an object for their scheming ambition. 
 He enjoins them to watch against wolves ; admonishes 
 Archippus to fulfil his ministry ; Timothy to be an 
 example of the believers in word, conversation, charity, 
 spirit, faith, purity; to read, meditate, neglect no 
 gift, but absorb liimself wholly with the Gospel care ; 
 to flee the pursuit of lucre, and follow after righteous- 
 ness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness ; to be 
 faithful in fight, faitliful in maintaining doctrine ; to 
 endure hardness, and shun vain babblings, which tend 
 to the increase of ungodKness. The servant of the 
 Lord he beseeches not to strive, but to be gentle unto 
 all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing 
 those that oppose themselves : he must be constant in 
 the study of the Holy Scriptures, as the man of God, 
 and thereby be furnished for every good word and 
 work. And Peter, who had learned his lesson of 
 humility so dearly, puts on record his earnest admoni- 
 tion, that the servants of the Chief Shepherd exercise 
 no other authority over the flock than what their 
 obligation to feed and guide it, and keep oil' the wolf, 
 may give them; employing no secular constraint, 
 and affecting no magisterial pomp or sway, but 
 walking in humility, and looking for a crown of glory 
 as their reward. 
 
 Such are some of the traces of ministerial character 
 as registered in Holy Scripture. Here is the standard 
 of attainment, — one of which we all, in various degrees, 
 2 F 2 
 
436 MOMENTOUS REQUIREMENTS. 
 
 alas ! fall short. None can find fault witli tins beauty 
 of holiness, or say that the wants of the world are 
 such that these qualities can be dispensed with. 
 Christ^s cause requires the aid of men who are fraught 
 with aims and tempers, and an absorbed attention, 
 like those specified above ; and if we have interpreted 
 the word of God with the merest every-day honesty, 
 the absolute absence of these qualifications is the 
 absence equally absolute of a ministerial call. 
 
 § YII. The wonder is, that, with all this warn- 
 ing, serious young men can be found who are 
 willing to enter upon the care of souls at all. Were it 
 not that in early youth this subject presents to us 
 rather its exciting or spirit-stirring side, — its opening 
 out an arena of hallowed labour, — than that of its awe 
 and responsibility ; were it not that reason and intro- 
 spection are then comparatively dormant ; or, whether 
 dormant or not, tliat an inward sacred impulse, 
 stronger than reasoning, overbears them entirely; it 
 could hardly be that the failing ranks of God^s ser- 
 vants could be recruited. However gladly we may 
 adhere to the doctrine of the Divine Sovereignty, and 
 own that God will fulfil His purposes on the earth, 
 by methods which are far above, and often opposed to, 
 human thought; however we confess that He may 
 have chosen the weak things of this world to con- 
 found the mighty, and the foolish to confound the 
 wise ; yet always, by ordinary or extraordinary opera- 
 tion. He has made His real servants to stand before 
 the world with the clearest consciences, the strongest 
 understandings, the noblest aims, the greatest suasive 
 power, the firmest principles, of all men. The teach- 
 ing of Christ, and the day of Pentecost, made the 
 
TRUE LEARNING. 437 
 
 Galilean fishermen such ; and sanctified learning, 
 combined \vith the unction of the Holy One, has 
 furnished similar, in a lower degree, ever since. 
 
 AVith hirelings and worldlings we have nothing 
 here to do. Christianity must ever have a treasure 
 of thought and wisdom at hand, which shall be 
 available to shame the wisdom of tliis world, and con- 
 vict it of narrowness and folly. It must ever be in a 
 position to impart unto human society in general 
 some s])iritual gift : else the authority of its representa- 
 tives and witnesses will be lowered ; and careless men 
 will think that the feeblest minds, and the scantiest 
 attainments, are quite sufficient to promulgate and to 
 exhaust all it has to say. To guard and maintain 
 this treasure of ever-expanding truth, from which 
 man draws his best knowledge and all his joy, 
 must be a stated business, and an earnest one, too, of 
 life. However a Christian laity may pursue a higher 
 culture in all discipline and knowledge, especially 
 tliat which is sacred, still the application of that 
 knowledge, in their case, is not directly to the main- 
 tenance and extension of Christ's cause in the world, 
 but rather to the adorning of personal character, and 
 so mediately is made to act upon its end. Moreover, 
 the instances of this higher culture are not so general 
 amongst us, as to furnish sufficient ground for making 
 permanent arrangements in reference to it ; and if 
 tliey were, the necessity would be all the more urgent, 
 that our Preachers and Pastors should be the subjects 
 of a culture still higher ; that a laity, even intelligent 
 as we are describing, should be able to look up to 
 tliem with deference and respect, if not with grati- 
 tude, because of the light that they shed, as well as 
 
438 TRUE LEARNING. 
 
 because of the affections that they stir. It is a great 
 mistake, however, to suppose that educated and taste- 
 ful hearers alone require a well-trained and qualified 
 Ministry. Who needs a soul so thorouglily con- 
 versant with the whole region of truth, — so alive to 
 the importance of putting it in its various aspects, — 
 so able to strip away from it all perplexing encum- 
 brances, — so ready to seize on its more salient and 
 spirit-stirring bearings, — as the Preacher to the un- 
 learned? the unlearned, I say, who are not neces- 
 sarily the torpid, the unconcerned, or the incapable. 
 Many a soul in our ordinary congregations, devoid of 
 learning, sits quivering with life and mental craving, 
 and is thankful and happy in no ordinary degree to 
 have the understanding irradiated and the conscience 
 conquered by overwhelming simple truth, never seen to 
 be so great and so simple before. The fine gold of 
 pastoral knowledge is needed, if it be only to produce 
 a scorn of the glittering leaf of base metal ; for where 
 this last is in vogue, all are paupers together. The 
 word of God, and human experience, are at one in 
 this matter. The parables of Christ, the gifts of the 
 Holy Ghost to the Apostles, the various charges of 
 St. Paul, all point to a cultured Pastorate; and 
 would it not be a palpable contradiction to say, that 
 there was ever a great light in Christ's church who 
 was devoid of culture ? The special study of the faith- 
 ful servant of Christ, — the study ever inviting, ever 
 unfinished, ever new, — the study in which the aspiring 
 spirit gathers strength in its progress, is that of the 
 inspired word ; that is, first, holy Scripture, as con- 
 taining the positive decisions of the all-wise God, 
 comprehending both doctrine smd jjrecejjtj both and 
 
MOTIAL ADVANTAGE OF SCHOLARSHIP. 439 
 
 equally being unalterable laio, not to be refined away 
 by any philosophy, or altered by the spirit of any age, 
 but rather bringing all philosophy and the spirit of 
 every age to the test of its decisions, in their mutual 
 harmony and reciprocal interpretation, — the great 
 staple truths, by the bearing of which on the con- 
 science men are awakened and saved. Secondly, holy 
 Scripture, as illustrated and commented on by the 
 momentous history of the past ; nations, famiHes, and 
 individuals, xvilling and unwilling, silent and vocal, 
 in enmity and amity, in anger and in love, furnishing 
 their thousand echoes to the voice that speaketh from 
 heaven. And, thirdly, holy Scripture, as intimating 
 those vast outlines of truth, within the sphere of 
 which the humble and sanctified soul is permitted to 
 indulge its explorations, until the hour shall come 
 when faith is changed to sight, — such as the mystic 
 aspects of providence and of prophecy, the analogies 
 of the moral universe, the glorified humanity of Christ, 
 the innumerable company of angels, and eternal life. 
 
 § YIII. The Christian scholar, too, in the pastoral 
 position, will every way be a steadier and better wit- 
 ness for Christ ; better in heart, better at watching 
 and keeping off aggression, as well as better at feeding 
 and ruling. The Holy Spirit will have a clearer 
 sphere in which to pour the streams of His own 
 grace : the removal of mental error must ever prove 
 favourable to the work of the Spirit of truth ; and, in 
 all the hearts of those we are contemplating, who are 
 truly regenerate, the sense of want is usually deeper, 
 and the inward groaning after the unction of the 
 Holy One, proportionably greater. 
 
 Large acquisitions will foster a steady faith in 
 
440 MORAL adva:ntage of scholarship. 
 
 Clirist's remedial goveniment, amid all tlie pertui'ba- 
 tions and exigences of the Christian cause. A man will 
 build on the sure foundation which is laid in Zion : 
 he will believe and not make haste ; that is^ he wall be 
 preserved from precipitancy and discomposure, and 
 not suffer himself to be prompted either to rash acts 
 or guilty neglects, by fear or unbehef ; but will look 
 through all clouds and dark appearances to the certain 
 final issue. He will see, as the wisest once of men 
 saw, that the things which are now are the things 
 which have been ; that there is no heresy which now 
 tlu*eatens the truth but it has had its ancient type ; 
 no schism which rends the church but its promoters 
 have had their former representatives, actuated by the 
 same motives, working out the same drama, consigned 
 to disappointment with the same confusion. No one 
 who has looked at the billowy fluctuations of the Gnostic 
 philosophy, or at the Aristotelian analysis of the Middle 
 Ages, will wonder greatly at our modern spiritualism : 
 none who have considered the strifes of Thebulis at 
 Jerusalem, of Paul of Samosata at Antioch, Novatus 
 and Felicissimus at Carthage, and the like, will be 
 overwhelmed with amazement at perceiving some 
 Ministers prove unfaithful, and, tln-ough disap- 
 pointment of their hope of elevation, rending the 
 church with schisms, and gathering the blood of 
 souls in their skirts : none who have studied the 
 history of Cyprian, Augustine, and Athanasius, will 
 be revolted at seeing men wdio undauntedly maintain 
 the truth followed by opprobrium and scorn : none 
 who have marked how in North Africa people fell away 
 and departed from the church by thousands, will be 
 stumbled at an occasional loss of numbers. Those 
 
MORAL ADVANTAGE OF SCHOLARSHIP. 44 1 
 
 wlio on the page of history have frequently seen the 
 Christian cause go down like a darkened setting 
 sun, and then rise again with new splendour, will 
 not be liable to extreme depression from transient 
 discouragements. He who dwells upon a very 
 narrow island-rock, so as to be reached by the 
 spray of the storm that rages around him, may 
 be seriously apprehensive for the result, and may 
 think that the sea will burst its ancient bounds, and 
 spread universal ruin ; but he who from a mountain- 
 height takes in its larger expanse, and has his fear of 
 a single billow corrected by observing over what a 
 vast surface billows have been wont harmlessly to 
 roll, and what counteracting influences are at work, — 
 earth with ocean ; both with the atmosphere, sun, and 
 moon ; disturbance with rest ; life with death ; motion 
 with inertia ; — will take a more just view, and repose 
 in the wisdom of the great Artificer, who built all 
 things. He will hail the bow of promise, as it spans 
 the heavens, with intenser delight, chiefly because it is 
 God's sign, but hardly less because it has been ten 
 thousand times verified as such. Such assurance has 
 he who has been favoured to look abroad by Christian 
 learning into that day now partly past, which shall be 
 " one day known to the Lord, not day nor night : but 
 it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be 
 hght." (Zcch. xiv. 7.) 
 
 § IX. In this subject the Wesleyan has a deep and 
 stirring interest. Ignorance has often left a Society 
 open to the wiles of any heresiarch or religious adven- 
 turer who was passing by : it has often left a not 
 ungenerous-hearted youth, or senior, to become, 
 under similar influence, instead of the valuable and 
 
442 WESLEYAN CULTURE. 
 
 influential lay coadjutor, tlie pragmatical church poli- 
 tician and debater, as void of modesty as of wisdom, 
 and eventually the schismatic. And, often it has left 
 the Pastor, too, — who, so far as its sway extended, 
 was disqualified in heart, — to wither, and be palsied in 
 hand, at the gibes and sarcasms of the more favoured ; 
 and has prejudiced, to this extent, his claim to be 
 the man of God, ready for every good word and 
 w^ork. This is an evil to be done away. The 
 Wesleyan Conference may well brace itself to meet 
 all its difficulties, if in patience and in prayer it can 
 raise and foster from year to year a succession of 
 intelligent and powerful Preachers of the Gospel, 
 men of devout spirit and holy life, such as are called 
 for by the needs of this nation and the world. 
 With all its toils, conflicts, and discouragements, it 
 will realise in this effort an abundant reward, an 
 object than which in the world there is no higher. 
 
 Meanwhile there is a hum and stir universally of 
 men setting to work all the means and instruments of 
 conveying knowledge, whether it be of good or of evil. 
 All come under the impulse and influence of this 
 movement, — young parents in their homes, teachers 
 in the Sunday-schools, children in the sanctuary. 
 Instructors need instructing, and agents need acting 
 upon; and the time has come, when a Christianity 
 victorious must carry the understanding and the heart 
 together ; must fulfil its high purpose and promise of 
 meeting all the wants of human nature, or else be 
 prepared to cede to the enemy a portion of what it 
 has won. Rome has its training-schools in every 
 high place, and in many a corner : godless science 
 does not want for similar institutions, wherever 
 
SPIKITUAL GKACES. 443 
 
 scholars can be gatliered : and shall not that form of 
 religion which its adherents believe to be the purest 
 type of Christianity, be sustained by worthy and 
 diffusive culture, and culture that has a pastoral 
 fountain-head ? In other words, to keep our Saviour^s 
 simile in view, Christian Ministers must either find 
 broad rich pastures and still and refreshing w^aters, 
 amid wdiich to lead the sheep and lambs of God^s 
 fold, or else they must expect them to wander in 
 search of a visionary common of their own, wlierever 
 ignorance, or taste, or pride, or passion may direct. 
 " The Priest's lips,'' and surely the Pastor's, '' should 
 keep knowledge, and the people should seek the law 
 at his mouth." 
 
 § X. In recording a few words of advice and admo- 
 nition to men, of wdiom many are wiser and better 
 than myself, it might seem that an apology was need- 
 ful; that is, for doing an act which, at first sight, 
 appears to savour of presumption : but he wdio has 
 been bold enough to write so far with respect to the 
 exterior relations of the Christian Ministry, can hardly 
 shrink with consistency from this remaining task. 
 The kindness and candour of ministerial readers are, 
 therefore, humbly soHcited in favour of the whole. 
 The writer assumes no other office than that of remem- 
 brancer, and feels assured that none more than he 
 needs to be quickened and excited by the memories 
 thus awakened. In a regularly established ministerial 
 fellowship, perhaps, there is no sin against which a 
 more diligent guard should be set up, than against that 
 of SELFISHNESS. It is difficult to conceive of a sin more 
 opposed to the mind of Christ, or, which is a direct 
 consequence, more hurtful to the cause of Christianity 
 
444 ANTI-SELFISHNESS. 
 
 in the world. But tainted and damaged as liumau 
 nature is, we are prone to feed on public estimation, 
 and to draw too large a portion of our comfort from 
 the applause of our fellow- creatures ; and often when 
 that apiDlause — by our brethren in the Ministry espe- 
 cially — is lessened or withheld, perhaps unintention- 
 ally, we are apt to deem ourselves the most injured 
 and insulted of men. The grand relief of this malady 
 is to adopt the same course in our ministerial life, 
 which we do with regard to our individual salvation, — 
 the course so vividly described in Heb. xii. : " Where- 
 fore seeing we also are compassed about with so great 
 a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, 
 and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us 
 run with patience the race that is set before us, look- 
 ing unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith ; 
 who for the joy that was set before Him endured the 
 cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the 
 right hand of the throne of God. Tor consider Him 
 that endured such contradiction of sinners against 
 Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." 
 (1-3.) Every word in this passage seems to burn 
 and glow against ministerial selfishness. 
 
 Here is the arena where the race has to be run ; 
 here are the surrounding myriads of spectators who 
 may give or withhold their acclamations, and all the 
 exciting circumstances of the conflict; and here is 
 the expectant of the prize, not indifferent to the 
 estimation in which he may be held, — patiently 
 pressing on, whether esteemed or not, keeping his 
 eye averted from every sinister object, that all his 
 energy of vision may be absorbed by the course; 
 and thus, being fired to exertion rather by the goal 
 
ANTI-SELFISHNESS. 445 
 
 than by the crowd, he so runs as to obtain, and wins 
 at last. 
 
 And turning from the Grecian racer to the servant 
 of the Gospel, let us ask what is that all-engrossing 
 object which fills his spiritual eye ? Jesus who Him- 
 self saw a joy that was set before Him, a joy of res- 
 cuing souls from hell and raising them to heaven, 
 who endured the cross, Karac^povrjaa^;, despising the 
 shame, and enduring the contradiction of sinners 
 against Himself. Surely there can be little comfort 
 in looking amid the conflicts of our sphere to a self- 
 renouncing Saviour, in order to obtain fortitude, we 
 at the same time seeking self-aggrandisement : in 
 such a case it is looking to be startled, to be appalled, 
 to be confounded. And if we use the Antinomian 
 argument, that Christ^s self-denial is to stand in the 
 stead of our own, we turn the profound lesson of the 
 Apostle into drivelling absurdity. To what end, then, 
 is fortitude to be sought? or how is faith to be 
 finished ? 
 
 Amongst us, some brethren may draw attention to 
 themselves by the peculiarity and rarity of their gifts, 
 leading off that attention in the same proportion from 
 others whose gifts are less rare, though, tried by the 
 Gospel standard, not less valuable. The eminent bro- 
 ther is in danger of thinking the homage rendered to 
 him too scanty ; the one who is passed b}^, of kindling 
 at the slight. One accomplishes some really hard task, 
 and it is not acknowledged and appreciated ; another 
 sends aloft some brilliant thing to excite and ilhunine, 
 while thousands clap their hands for a moment in 
 ecstasy, and then forget. The first mourns as though 
 his labour were lost ; the second is disgusted that the 
 
446 GOD OUR PORTION. 
 
 reward which belongs to labour does not fall to his 
 share : and thus, in various ways, this master evil, this 
 epitome of all sin, finds entrance into our soul. The 
 object of adoration is no longer the crucified Christ, 
 but our own restless and self-excruciated nature, 
 which, in " its blind idolatry,^"* makes its own dearest 
 affections to pass through the fire. When this is the 
 case, that is, when the shrine of our self is slighted, 
 the countenance falls, and ever3i:hing around grows 
 dark ; every brother's gesture is deemed a sneer, every 
 M^hisper an innuendo, every word an insult, every act 
 an oppression, every combined transaction a plot ; and 
 amid these looming evils the soul of the selfish rages 
 till the Holy Spirit is gone; and then, unless he 
 struggle into penitence, and obtain a renewed life, 
 he must, Saul-like, proudly fall into despair and die. 
 Alas ! if Christ, His favour, presence, and peace, are 
 not enough for us, what is our estimate of the whole 
 work of Christianity ? Because we are not elevated 
 by office, or dignified by titles, or sought after by 
 multitudes, or placed amid great central communities, 
 are we to deem that our very existence is down- 
 trodden, that our Bible-class lessons, our sermons, 
 our admonitions in private, our spiritual counsels in 
 private fellowship, our walk before men, and our 
 groanings in the closet, are all unmeaning nullities, 
 and working out nothing for eternity ? O shame on 
 such walking by sight and not by faith, if walking it 
 may be called ! Shame rather on such grovelling 
 under a spirit of infirmity, which, in the highest and 
 holiest work on earth, can only look down and see 
 nothing but " man that shall die, and the son of man 
 which shall be made as grass; and forgets the Lord 
 
GOD OUR PORTION. 447 
 
 our Maker, tliat hath stretched forth the heavens;" 
 (Isai. li. 12 ;) and forgets as well the greatness of 
 the sanctified issues of what are called "httle things !" 
 Is all lost because the breath of praise does not float 
 around us, or because we are not the impellent force 
 of some visiUe movement ? The greatest movements 
 are invisible ; the greatest men are the humblest. 
 
 That individuals united \\\i\\ others in close fel- 
 lowship should sometimes have their merits over- 
 looked and unrewarded, is a condition from which no 
 eartlily society can be exempt : it results from human 
 infirmity, and is made subsidiary to a great scheme of 
 moral trial. How else could appeal be made to Him, 
 as the most just Judge ? He alone can render abso- 
 lutely and without mistake to every man according as 
 his work shall be. 
 
 Moreover, the possibility of suffering occasional 
 neglect is the inconvenience and trial to which every 
 one in a community must submit, who would share 
 in the advantages of communion. A soldier who 
 would win in battle must be content to put forth 
 many earnest struggles, without being greatly con- 
 cerned at the time whether they are appreciated or 
 not, if he would share in the liberty, comfort, and 
 prosperity which are realised by the victory : and so a 
 servant of Christ must be content to fight the good 
 fight of faith, from an assurance that if he shall get 
 no chaplet here, yet "i\\{i'Lovdii\\Q rigJiteous Judge 
 shall give him a crown of life in that day;" and that 
 his share in the conquest over the world and sin shall 
 be as broad and rich as that of any who have obtained 
 the conqueror^s lot. As the warrior might gain a 
 momentary notoriety, not fame, by leaving the ranks. 
 
44^8 LOVE. 
 
 and coruscating as a lone skirmislier, until overswept 
 by the enemy ; so the selfish Minister who, weary of 
 blending his efforts with those of others as far as to 
 merge their distinctive splendour, breaks away from 
 his brethren to signalise his sense of offended worth, 
 runs into a waste of wild and pointless warfare, where 
 worth and gifts and graces go for little or notlnng 
 against such compact and miscellaneous hostihty. As 
 there is often seen a false humility manifesting itself 
 in a plastic yielding to the opinions of others, which 
 leads its possessor to sin against conscience and truth ; 
 so there is an opposite evil, quite as perilous to the 
 interests both of truth and goodness, — the parade of 
 mental independency, the loud manifesto of restless 
 minds. There was not a more noble and unfettered 
 human soul in existence than was that of the Apostle 
 who exhorted and said, " I beseech you, brethren, by 
 the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak 
 the same thing, and that there be no divisions among 
 you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the 
 same mind and in the same judgment.-*' A low 
 Christianity says unto men, " You may all think as 
 you like:" a true Christianity says, ^^ Strive after 
 oneness of judgment ; be at pains by mutual giving 
 way a little to get at the same point ; just as you 
 strive to get near God." 
 
 § XI. Of what priceless value among fellow- 
 labourers in the Gospel is holy and mutual love, the 
 charity so vividly depicted by the man just named, 
 who exemplified it, — the Apostle Paul ! It is not to 
 be gained by sitting down, with grammar and lexicon, 
 to sift the text and construction of the inimitably 
 beautiful thirteenth chapter of the Second Epistle 
 
LOVE. 449 
 
 to the Corinthians, any more than the process of 
 analysing medicine \^dll heal a disordered constitution. 
 Love is of God ; and its infusion into the heart tends 
 more directly to the production of righteousness 
 between brother and brother, in word, look, and 
 work, between the Pastors and the flock, and between 
 all and the Head, than all the canons and constitu- 
 tions that were ever published. And if, as the Apostle 
 John intimates, there is a connexion of preparation 
 between perfect love and boldness in the day of 
 judgment, — ^the day when eternal righteousness shall 
 run like fire through all the dark and veiled things 
 of past ages, reducing them to its own standard, when 
 " the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be 
 as stubble," — shall not that very love, in propor- 
 tion as it now draws toward perfection, impel every 
 person and principle it has to do with in the way of 
 righteousness, working light in the understanding, 
 tenderness in the conscience, rectitude in the will, 
 and harmony in all relations? Christ^s charge to 
 the Angel of the church of Laodicea is founded 
 on the fact, that this watchman and overseer had 
 lost for the time the glow of his charity; and in 
 losing this he lost all his distinction and value as a 
 Christian. He lost liis bond of attachment to those 
 around him in the church, while his position there 
 made him an alien from the world. The other results 
 were, — he had become an object of loathing to Him 
 who is ESSENTIAL LovE : lie was bhnd and deluded 
 as to his own condition, thinking himself rich, but 
 being poor even to nakedness and destitution. that 
 all who are verging towards tliis state, would seek for 
 and accept the remedy offered by Infinite Mercy, 
 
 G G 
 
450 LOVE. 
 
 lest their disease should, by personal influence and 
 contagion, be transferred to ten thousand others ! 
 It is "gold/' — ^the gold of the truth in which love 
 rejoices, — tried in the fire of affliction and perse- 
 cution and heresy, and yet to be tried in the fire of 
 the last day. Having this, we are made rich, and 
 capable of communion and interchange of spiritual 
 wealth with all raised and royal souls. It is " white rai- 
 ment," — the robe of the pardoned, which images the 
 removal of guilt and the remission of punishment; 
 that grace which fosters the distaste of seeking out 
 the defilement of others, while he who has it is all the 
 more startled and distressed when such defilement 
 appears : not by any means forgetting the " eye- 
 salve," or the Holy Spirit's unction and grace, to 
 make the very perceptions clear, and cause the subject 
 of it to see all tilings as God sees them. 
 
 What is a Christian Pastor's lot in this world, 
 supposing him to have his charity lowered down to 
 its least possible degree, but that of being forced 
 to move amid an endless series of disagreements and 
 repulsions ? A lamp without a light, a blaze without 
 heat, a link with no attachment to the chain, a 
 sound without music, a loadstone which never draws, 
 are but faint images of this fearful contrariety and 
 defection. It is not negation merely, it is posi- 
 tive evil; for who would say that lamps gone out, 
 or lurid flames amid a flood of radiance, a chaos 
 of Babel dissonance drowning heavenly harmonies, 
 a weight of shattered links hindering the movements 
 of the chain, and repelling masses perturbing the 
 attraction of the magnet, are not evils ? None like 
 ourselves are made to feel by position, or by study, 
 
LOVE. 451 
 
 and by communicating with others, the need of holy 
 love; but such are the devices of the great adversary, 
 that none have temptations to suspend or weaken its 
 exercise, or to starve it down, more numerous and 
 formidable. I may be hooted and pelted by the 
 wicked, hissed by the ignorant, contemned by the 
 bigoted and proud, and robbed by the dishonest, and 
 yet be rich after all, if permitted to live in the joys and 
 sorrows of those for whom Clirist died, who, like me, 
 have been forgiven, on whom He has impressed His 
 image, and who seek the things above ; and especially 
 to be united in fellow-feeling with those who have 
 entered into the deeper fellowship of His sufferings, 
 by being made under-shepherds of His flock. Before 
 all such there is a spiritual kingdom opening, of vast 
 immunities, in sympathy, hope, and joy; insomuch 
 that those who enter can afi'ord to look with pity 
 upon people who rage without, as much excluded 
 by their own will from this domain of contrite souls, 
 as evil angels are shut out of heaven by the sentence 
 of the Almighty. 
 
 The thief and robber of my soul is that which takes 
 from me the gold tried in the fire, or the white 
 garment which is washed in the blood of the Lamb, 
 and with it my love of soul- whiteness ; and he is the 
 jailer and oppressor of my soul, who cuts off, by his 
 ambition, by his slander, by his blood-guiltiness, my 
 living and loving fellowship with human beings who 
 could once tliink, pray, rejoice, grieve, and work 
 with me; who by their strength made me feel that 
 I was strong, who by their company assured me that 
 I was not alone. He it is who hinders me from 
 going abroad to breathe the mingled influences of a 
 2 G 2 
 
452 PATIENCE. 
 
 longing earth and a willing Heaven^ and pens up my 
 diminislied being in a corner of defence, where I must 
 draw my curtain and shut my door. 
 
 Wliy did Christ send forth his disciples by two 
 and two, but that their mutual graces might seem 
 to merge into each other, and that each might be 
 saved from the sin and curse of selfishness? And 
 why did the Apostles ordain Elders rather than a 
 single Elder in every church, but that they might 
 keep that ideal of their Lord before their mind? 
 Paul and Barnabas were both adored by the 
 people of Lystra, and both of them rent their clothes 
 and exclaimed against the wickedness. Men united in 
 the same toil, having the same passions, subject to 
 the same Lord, and anticipating the same rest, can, 
 as far as they are spiritual, have no varying — much 
 less, contrary — interests. If they revolve around each 
 other like double orbs, they will mutually keep their 
 course around their common Sun. O holy love, whither 
 art thou fled ? Thou who art the Author and Eoun- 
 tain of holy love, show by the depth of Thy fathomless 
 ocean that there is yet stream enough for our poor 
 river ! 
 
 Let me record one word concerning another grace, 
 and I have done; and that is — patience. If times 
 arrive when former adherents drop off, when friends 
 become few and enemies many, when the love of 
 many waxes cold, when discouragements are mul- 
 tiplied and much profession is merely formal, still the 
 cause of Christianity is not lost. Yain man in the 
 domain of the church has too much the spirit of the 
 merchant in his trade. If gain does not immediately 
 roll in proportionately to the capital embarked, he 
 
PATIENCE. 453 
 
 must change liis speculations, and re-acljust his com- 
 mercial theories. Here all is different ; for the great 
 Proprietor is above. His course is settled, His final 
 kingdom and possession secure. "We are employed in 
 using His gifts, but under an administration and 
 arrangement far too vast and complicated for us even 
 to conceive of : therefore our immediate concern is to 
 be faithful to the truth, to hold it, live by it, and 
 promulgate it, till the end shall come. Or, regarding 
 ours as field-toil, " we shall reap, if we faint not :" the 
 danger, therefore, of fainting is to be guarded against. 
 This involves patience with the slow learner, with the 
 headstrong and ignorant recusant, — who may perhaps 
 berecovered by kindness, — with prejudice, and even with 
 passion itself, for a season ; and patience with the slow 
 but all-wise movements of Providence, in "the times 
 and seasons which the Father hath reserved in His 
 own power." Elijah at Mount Horeb, and James and 
 John in Samaria, gave at one time examples of the 
 contrary : they were all reproved, though in the end 
 they were all assured and comforted. The words of 
 Clirist to the Angel of the church at Philadelphia 
 are, doubtless, addressed to us and all fainting bre- 
 thren in the work of the Ministry in times of trial : 
 "Because thou hast kept the woeds of my 
 patience, i also will keep thee fllom the hour 
 of temptation, which shall come upon all the 
 would, to try them that dwell upon the earth. 
 Behold, I come quicklt : hold that fast which 
 
 THOU HAST, THAT NO MAN TAKE THY CROWN." (Ecv. 
 
 iii. 10, 11.) 
 
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