1 
 
 / 
 
 M 
 
 S * 
 
 H * 
 
 Js 2 
 
 t© pq 
 
 o 
 
 t 
 
 
 D; § 1 
 
 1 i - 
 
 
 BV 648 .W51 1873 
 Witherow, Thomas, 1824-1890 
 Which is the Apostolic 
 Church? 
 

 Q 
 
WHICH IS 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 AN INQUIKY 
 
 AT THE ORACLES OF GOD AS TO WHETHER ANY EXIST- 
 ING FORM OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT IS OF 
 DIVINE RIGHT. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS^iTHEROW, 
 
 PROFESSOR OP CHURCH HISTORY, LONDONDERRY, IRELAND. 
 
 EDITED AND ANNOTATED 
 
 Rev. R. M. PATTERSON. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 
 
 1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 5 
 
 Meaning of the word Church 
 
 
 19 
 
 Government of the Church 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES 
 
 
 
 42 
 
 The First Principle 
 
 
 
 . 46 
 
 The Second Principle 
 
 
 
 . 55 
 
 The Third Principle 
 
 
 
 62 
 
 The Fourth Principle . 
 
 
 
 68 
 
 The Fifth Principle 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 The Sixth Principle 
 
 
 
 84 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE TEST 
 
 
 
 91 
 
 Prelacy 
 
 
 
 93 
 
 Independency 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 Presbytery 
 
 
 
 109 
 
 The Result 
 
 
 
 117 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 This little book of Professor Witherow, of 
 Londonderry, is an admirably compact, clean- 
 cut and forcible inquiry into the great prin- 
 ciples and facts of church government. It is 
 well adapted to strengthen the faith of Pres- 
 byterians in their system, and to convince can- 
 did inquirers of its apostolic character. As 
 originally published in Ireland, it contained 
 references to the Presbyterians of that country 
 which would not apply to American Presby- 
 terians in general. Its descriptions of the 
 antagonistic forms of ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment were also somewhat colored by and 
 restricted to the British organizations. In 
 order to prepare this edition for American 
 readers (at the request of the Board of Pub- 
 lication), the first cla. c s of passages have been 
 eliminated, and the second have been sup- 
 
4 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 plemented by foot-notes characterizing some 
 of the leading ecclesiastical organizations of 
 this country, and showing the application to 
 them of the principles that are laid down in 
 the text. These changes have been mads 
 with the courteous consent of Professor With- 
 erow. The title of the Irish edition of the 
 book was: "The Apostolic Church: Which 
 is it?" In this edition a transposition of the 
 words of that title has been made, because 
 the Board of Publication has already on its 
 catalogue a work on the same subject, by the 
 Bev. Albert Barnes, with the title, "The 
 Apostolic Church/' 
 
 We have endeavored not to multiply the 
 notes, but to restrict them to the smallest 
 possible number and compass, so as to keep 
 
 the book small in size. 
 
 E. M. P. 
 
WHICH IS 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 IT is very common for professing Christians 
 to draw a distinction between essentials 
 and non-essentials in religion, and to infer 
 that if any fact or doctrine rightly belongs 
 to the latter class it must be a matter of very 
 little importance, and may in practice be safely 
 set at naught. The great bulk of men take 
 their opinions on trust; they will not undergo 
 the toil of thinking, searching and reasoning 
 about anything, and one of the most usual 
 expedients adopted to save them the trouble 
 of inquiry, and to turn aside the force of any 
 disagreeable fact, is to meet it by saying, 
 "The matter is not essential to salvation; 
 l* 5 
 
6 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHUECH ? 
 
 therefore we need give ourselves little concern 
 on the subject." 
 
 If the distinction here specified is safe, the 
 inference drawn from it is certainly dangerous. 
 To say that because a fact of divine revela- 
 tion is not essential to salvation it must of 
 necessity be unimportant, and may or may 
 not be received by us, is to assert a principle 
 the application of which would make havoc 
 of our Christianity. For what are truths 
 essential to salvation ? Are they not these : 
 That there is a God ; that all men are sinners ; 
 that the Son of God died upon the cross to 
 make atonement for the guilty; and that who- 
 soever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall 
 be saved? There is good reason for believing 
 that not a few souls are now in happiness who 
 in life knew little more than these, the first 
 principles of the oracles of God — the very 
 alphabet of the Christian system ; and if so, 
 no other divine truths can be counted abso- 
 lutely essential to salvation. But if all the 
 other truths of revelation are unimportant 
 because they happen to be non-essentials, it 
 follows that the word of God itself is in the 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 7 
 
 main unimportant; for by far the greatest 
 portion of it is occupied with matters the 
 knowledge of which, in the case supposed, is 
 not absolutely indispensable to the everlasting 
 happiness of men. Nor does it alter the case 
 if we regard the number of fundamental 
 truths to be much greater. Let a man once 
 persuade himself that importance attaches 
 only to what he is pleased to call essentials, 
 whatever their number, and he will, no doubt, 
 shorten his creed and cut away the foundation 
 of many controversies, but he will practically 
 set aside all except a very small part of the 
 Scriptures. If such a principle does not mu- 
 tilate the Bible, it stigmatizes much of it as 
 trivial. Revelation is all gold for precious- 
 ness and purity, but the very touch of such a 
 principle would transmute the most of it into 
 dross. 
 
 Though every statement in the Scriptures 
 cannot be regarded as absolutely essential to 
 salvation, yet everything there is essential to 
 some other wise and important end, else it 
 would not find a place in the good word of 
 God. Human wisdom may be baffled in at- 
 
8 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 tempting to specify the design of every truth 
 that forms a component part of divine revela- 
 tion, but eternity will show us that no por- 
 tion of it is useless. All Scripture is profit- 
 able. A fact written therein may not be 
 essential to human salvation, and yet it may 
 be highly conducive to some other great and 
 gracious purpose in the economy of God — it 
 may be necessary for our personal comfort, for 
 our guidance in life or for our growth in holi- 
 ness, and most certainly it is essential to the 
 completeness of the system of divine truth. 
 The law of the Lord is perfect. Strike out 
 of the Bible the truth that seems the most in- 
 significant of all, and the law of the Lord 
 would not be perfect any more. In architec- 
 ture, the pinning that fills a crevice in the wall 
 occupies a subordinate position, in comparison 
 with the quoin ; but the builder lets us know 
 that the one has an important purpose to 
 serve as well as the other, and does its part to 
 promote the stability and completeness of the 
 house. In shipbuilding, the screws and bolts 
 that gird the ship together are insignificant, as 
 compared with the beams of oak and masts of 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 9 
 
 pine, but they contribute their full share to 
 the safety of the vessel and the security of the 
 passenger. So in the Christian system every 
 fact, great or small, that God has been pleased 
 to insert in the Bible, is, by its very position, 
 invested with importance, answers its end, 
 and, though perhaps justly considered as non- 
 essential to salvation, does not deserve to be 
 accounted as worthless. 
 
 Every divine truth is important, though it 
 may be that all divine truths are not of equal 
 importance. The simplest statement of the 
 Bible is a matter of more concern to an im- 
 mortal being than the most sublime sentiment 
 of mere human genius. The one carries with 
 it what the other cannot show — the stamp of 
 the approval of God. The one comes to us 
 from heaven; the other savors of the earth. 
 The one has for us a special interest, as form- 
 ing a constituent portion of that word which 
 is a message from God to each individual 
 man ; the other is the production of a mind 
 merely human, to which we and all our in- 
 terests were alike unknown. Any truth merely 
 human should weigh with us light as a feather 
 
10 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 in comparison with the most insignificant of 
 the truths of God. The faith of a Christian 
 should strive to reach and grasp everything 
 that God has honored with a place in that 
 word the design of which is to be a light to 
 our feet as we thread our way through this 
 dark world. Besides, this, unlike every other 
 book, is not doomed to perish. Heaven and 
 earth may pass away, but the words of Christ 
 shall not pass away. The seal of eternity is 
 stamped on every verse of the Bible. This 
 fact is enough of itself to make every line of 
 it important. 
 
 With these observations we deem it right 
 to introduce our exposition of ecclesiastical 
 polity. Few would go so far as to assert 
 that correct views on church government are 
 essential to salvation, and yet it is a subject 
 whose importance it were folly to attempt to 
 depreciate. The Holy Spirit, speaking in the 
 Scriptures, treats of this theme. The Chris- 
 tian world has been divided in opinion about 
 it ever since the Reformation. We cannot 
 attach ourselves to any denomination of Chris- 
 tians without giving our influence either to 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 11 
 
 truth or error on this very point; and the, 
 views we adopt upon this subject go far to 
 color our opinions on matters of Christian 
 faith and practice. With such facts before 
 us, though we may not regard the polity of 
 the New Testament Church as essential to 
 human salvation, we do not feel at liberty to 
 undervalue its importance. 
 
 The various forms of Church government 
 that we find existing at present in the Chris- 
 tian world may be classed under some one or 
 other of these heads : Peel ac y, Independ- 
 ency and Presbytery. We do not em- 
 ploy these terms in an offensive sense, but as 
 being the best calculated to denote their re- 
 spective systems. Prelacy is that form of 
 Church government which is administered 
 by archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons 
 and other ecclesiastical office-bearers, depend- 
 ing on their hierarchy, and is such as we see 
 exemplified in the Greek Church, the Church 
 of Rome and the Church of England.* In- 
 
 * A more minute definition of Prelacy is given by 
 Principal Hill in his "Lectures in Divinity," p. 719 
 (Carter's edition) : " There is in the Church a superior 
 
12 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 dependency is that form of Church govern- 
 ment whose distinctive principle is that each 
 
 order of office-bearers, the successors of the apostles, who 
 possess in their own persons the right of ordination and 
 jurisdiction, and who are called EirioKOTroi, as being the 
 overseers not only of the people, but also of the clergy, 
 and an inferior order of ministers, called presbyters, 
 the literal translation of the word irpea^vjepoi^ which is 
 rendered in our English Bible elders, persons who receive, 
 from the ordination of the bishop, power to preach and 
 to administer the sacraments, who are set over the peo- 
 ple, but are themselves under the government of the 
 bishop, and have no right to convey to others the sacred 
 office which he gives them authority to exercise under 
 him.' ? In other words, " the prelatical theory assumes 
 the perpetuity of the apostleship as the governing power 
 in the Church, which, therefore, consists of those who 
 profess the true religion and are subject to apostle- 
 bishops. This is the Anglican or High Church form of 
 this theory. In its Low Church form, the prelatical the- 
 ory simply teaches that there was originally a threefold 
 order in the ministry, and that there should be now." 
 (Dr. Hodge, "What is Presbyterianism ?" p. 5.) The 
 papal form adds to the theory the ideas that Peter was 
 the primate of the apostles, that the bishop of Koine, 
 as his successor, is primate over the apostle-bishops, and 
 that it is essential to the Church to have "a vicar of 
 Christ, a perpetual college of apostles, and the people 
 subject to their infallible control." Three orders in the 
 ministry — deacons, priests and bishops — the last named 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 13 
 
 separate congregation is under Christ subject 
 to no external jurisdiction whatever, but has 
 within itself — in its office-bearers and mem- 
 bers — all the materials of government, and is 
 such as is at present in practical operation 
 among Congregationalists and Baptists. Pres- 
 bytery is that form of Church government 
 which is dispensed by presbyters or elders, 
 met in session, presbytery, synod, or general 
 assembly ; and is such as is presented in the 
 several Presbyterian Churches of Ireland, 
 Scotland, England and America. These three 
 forms of ecclesiastical polity are at this mo- 
 ment extensively prevalent in Christendom. 
 Indeed, every other organization that any 
 considerable body of Christians has adopted 
 is only a modification or a mixture of some 
 of the systems we have named.* 
 
 of whom are the successors of the apostles and the 
 rulers of all: this is the one principle which runs 
 through all the varied and varying forms of prelacy. 
 
 P. 
 
 * The Methodist Episcopal Church, for instance, in 
 
 its government is a mixture of Episcopacy and Presby- 
 
 terianism. It recognizes two offices which are also orders 
 
 in the ministry — that of deacons, who are preaching min- 
 
 2 
 
14 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 A very brief examination enables us to see 
 'that these three systems differ very widely in 
 their characteristic features. Not only so, but 
 Prelacy, in all its main principles, is opposed 
 rto Presbytery ; and Independency, in its main 
 ^principles, is opposed to both. It follows 
 that three forms differing so very much can- 
 not all be right, and cannot, of course, have 
 equal claims on the attachment and support 
 of enlightened and conscientious men. It is 
 self-evident, moreover, that the word of God, 
 the only rule of faith and practice, cannot ap- 
 prove of all; for as the word of God never 
 contradicts itself, it cannot sanction contradict- 
 ory systems. Some one of the three must be 
 more in accordance with the will of God, as 
 expressed in the Scriptures, than either of the 
 
 isters, and that of presbyters or elders, who are a higher 
 order of the ministry, and to whom alone belong the 
 powers of government and of ordination. It also pos- 
 sesses a third office, that of bishop or general superinten- 
 dent, which in order is Presbyterial, but in office Episcopal. 
 (Hawley's " Manual of Methodism," pp. 144-150.) But 
 none of these officers is chosen by the people. There 
 is not a plurality of elders in each church ; not are the 
 conferences church courts of review and appeal. P. 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 15 
 
 others, and to know which of them is so 
 should be a subject of deep interest to every 
 child of God. A Christian, of all men, is 
 bound to be a lover of the truth ; and we are 
 warranted in supposing that if a Christian 
 could only see to which of these competing 
 systems the word of truth bears witness, he 
 would support it with all his might, and would 
 lend no encouragement to the others. If a 
 man, after he sees the difference, can hold 
 what he knows to be merely human in the 
 same estimation with what he knows to be 
 divine, let him bid farewell to his Chris- 
 tianity, and cease to pretend that he cherishes 
 any attachment to the truth. The religion of 
 the Lord Jesus, unless we greatly mistake its 
 spirit, binds all who receive it to prefer the 
 true to the false, the right to the wrong, the 
 good to the evil ; and for us to be tempted by 
 any consideration to hold them in equal rev- 
 erence and render them equal support is to 
 fling one of the first requirements of Chris- 
 tianity away from us. The influence of a 
 Christian is often very little in this world ; 
 but whatever it is, it is a talent, for which, 
 
16 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 like his time, his money or his intellectual 
 power, he is accountable to God, and that in- 
 fluence ought ever to be on the side of the 
 truth, never against the truth. 
 
 Which, then, of the three forms of Church 
 government prevalent throughout the world 
 is it the duty of a Christian to select and to 
 support ? 
 
 This question must be decided by the stan- 
 dard of the word of God. That book is 
 quite sufficient to point out the path of duty 
 in this as well as in all other matters, for. it 
 was intended by its divine Author to be our 
 guide in matters of practice as well as of faith. 
 The Bible furnishes us with peculiar facilities 
 for forming an opinion on this very point. It 
 tells us of a Church that was organized in 
 the w r orlcl eighteen hundred years ago. The 
 founders of that Church were apostles and 
 prophets, acting by the authority of God. 
 Every fact known with certainty about the 
 original constitution of the Church is pre- 
 served in the Bible; everything preserved 
 elsewhere is only hearsay and tradition. We 
 read in Scripture very many facts that enable 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 17 
 
 us to know with tolerable accuracy the his- 
 tory, doctrine, worship and government of 
 that Church which existed in apostolic days. 
 The principles of government set up in a 
 Church which was founded by inspired men 
 must have had, we are sure, the approbation 
 of God. Corruptions in government as well 
 as in doctrine sprang up at a very early 
 period, but the Church in apostolic days was 
 purer in those aspects than it ever has been in 
 subsequent times. The most obvious method, 
 therefore, of arriving at the truth is to com- 
 pare our modern systems of ecclesiastical 
 government with the model presented in the 
 holy Scriptures. That which bears the closest 
 resemblance to the divine original is most 
 likely itself to be divine. 
 
 The warmest friends of existing ecclesiasti- 
 cal systems cannot fairly object to such a test. 
 There is scarcely a Church on earth that is 
 not loud in its pretensions to apostolicity. 
 The Prelatic Churches claim to be apostolic. 
 The Independent Churches claim to be apos- 
 tolic. The Presbyterian Churches claim to be 
 apostolic. Each of these denominations pro- 
 
 2* 
 
18 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 fesses to maintain the same doctrine, worship 
 and government that distinguished the Church 
 which was planted by the apostles of the Lord. 
 On one of these points — that of ecclesiastical 
 government — we propose to examine these 
 claims by the very test that themselves have 
 chosen. Divesting ourselves of all prejudice, 
 we come to the law and to the testimony, de- 
 sirous to know what God says on the topic in 
 question, and determined to follow where the 
 Scripture points, let that be where it may. 
 Let us search the Bible, to see what it teaches 
 on this great theme. If, on a thorough exam- 
 ination, we fail to discover there any clear and 
 definite principles of Church government, the 
 conclusion of necessity follows that Prelacy, 
 Independency, and Presbytery are upon a 
 level — none of them is based upon divine 
 authority — and it becomes a matter of mere 
 expediency and convenience which form we 
 support. If we find, on the other hand, that 
 certain great principles of Church govern- 
 ment are embodied in the Scriptures, then, 
 when we have ascertained accurately what 
 these principles are, we have reached the 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION". 19 
 
 mind of God upon the matter, and we have 
 discovered a touch-stone wherewith we can 
 try the value of existing systems, and deter- 
 mine how much is human and how much 
 divine in every one of them. 
 
 MEANING OF THE WORD CHURCH. 
 
 The word Church in our common discourse 
 is used in a variety of senses. Sometimes it 
 signifies the material building erected for di- 
 vine worship ; sometimes it means the people 
 usually assembling in such a building; some- 
 times the aggregate body of the clergy as dis- 
 tinguished from the laity ; sometimes the col- 
 lective body of professing Christians. As 
 general use is the law of language, it does not 
 become us to take exception to the variety of 
 significations that are given to the term by 
 our best writers, nor can we even say that 
 much practical inconvenience arises from them, 
 inasmuch as the accompanying circumstances 
 usually determine the specific sense in which 
 the word is to be understood. But it is never 
 to be forgotten that when we come to the in- 
 
20 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 terpretation of the word of God, the variety 
 of senses commonly attached to the term is 
 altogether inadmissible, and would, if adopted, 
 darken and corrupt the meaning of divine 
 revelation. The word Church in Scripture 
 has always one meaning, and only one — an 
 assembly of the people of God — a society of 
 Christians. The Greek word ecclesia, in its 
 primary and civil sense, means any assembly 
 called together for any purpose (Acts xix. 
 32) ; but in its appropriated and religious 
 sense, it means a society of Christians, and is 
 invariably translated by the word Church. 
 Examine the Scriptures from the commence- 
 ment to the close, and you will find that the 
 word Church never has any other meaning 
 but that which we have stated. Let any man 
 who feels disposed to dispute this statement 
 produce, if he can, any passage from the word 
 of God where the sense would be impaired, if 
 the phrase society of Christians or Christian 
 assembly were substituted for the word Church. 
 This, we are persuaded, would be impossible. 
 Though the meaning of the word Church is 
 in Scripture always the same, let it be ob- 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 21 
 
 served that its applications are various. It is 
 applied, at the pleasure of the writer, to any 
 society of Christians, however great or how- 
 ever small. Examples of this fact will not 
 fail to suggest themselves to all who are 
 familiar with the word of God. We give 
 a few passages as specimens : 
 
 Col. iv. 15. " Salute the brethren which are 
 in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the Church 
 which is in his house." There the term is 
 applied to a society of Christians so small as 
 to be able to find accommodations in a private 
 dwelling-house. 
 
 Acts xi. 22. " Then tidings of these things 
 came unto the ears of the Church which was 
 in Jerusalem. " There it means a society of 
 Christians residing in the same city, and in- 
 cluding, as we know on excellent authority, 
 several thousand persons. 
 
 Acts vii. 38. "This is he (Moses) that was 
 in the Church in the wilderness with the 
 angel which spake to him in Mount Sinai, 
 and with our fathers : who received the lively 
 oracles to give unto us." Here the word 
 signifies a society of Christians — an assembly 
 
22 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 of God's people so large as to include a whole 
 nation, consisting at the time of at least two 
 millions in number. The term is also applied 
 to the people of God in the days of David, 
 when residing in Canaan, spread over a great 
 extent of territory, and amounting to many 
 millions. Heb. ii. 12, compared with Psalm 
 xxii. 22-25. 
 
 1 Cor. xii. 28. "And God hath set some 
 in the Church, first, apostles ; secondarily, 
 prophets ; thirdly, teachers ; after that mira- 
 cles; then gifts of healings, helps, govern- 
 ments, diversities of tongues." Here the term 
 means the society of Christians residing on 
 earth; for it was among them, not among the 
 saints in glory, that God raised up men en- 
 dowed with apostolic and prophetical gifts. 
 
 Eph. v. 25. "Husbands, love your wives, 
 even as Christ also loved the Church, and 
 gave himself for it." The w r ord is here used 
 to signify the society of Christians in the 
 largest sense — all for whom Christ died — the 
 whole family of God — all saints in heaven 
 and all believers on earth, viewed as one great 
 company. 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 23 
 
 Let it be observed, however, that, amid all 
 this variety of application, the word Church 
 never alters its sense. Its meaning in every 
 occurrence is the same. However applied, it 
 never ceases to signify a society of Christians; 
 but whether the society that the inspired 
 writer lias in view is great or small, general 
 or particular, is to be learned, not from the 
 term, but from the circumstances in which the 
 term is used. In every instance it is from the 
 context, never from the word itself, that we 
 are to gather whether the society of Christians 
 intended by the writer is to be understood of 
 the collective company of God's people in 
 heaven and earth, or only of those on the 
 earth, in a nation, in a city or in a private 
 house. The practice — into which the best 
 expositors of the Scriptures are occasionally 
 betrayed — of taking up some idea conveyed 
 by the context only, and regarding that idea 
 as entering into the meaning of some particu- 
 lar word, has been shown by a late eminent 
 critic to be the origin of those numerous sig- 
 nifications — perplexing by their very multi- 
 tude — appended almost to every word in our 
 
24 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHUKCH ? 
 
 classical dictionaries, and the prolific source 
 of errors in the interpretation of the word of 
 God. This is obviously what has led many to 
 suppose that the word Church has two mean- 
 ings, signifying something different when re- 
 ferring to the universal body of believers from 
 what it does when denoting the body of be- 
 lievers connected with a particular locality. 
 The truth is that the word Church has only 
 one meaning, but it has a variety of applica- 
 tions. The term of itself never conveys any 
 idea but a society of Christians; it is the con- 
 text that invariably determines its general or 
 particular application. It is manifestly inac- 
 curate, therefore, to maintain that an idea, 
 invariably conveyed by the context, enters 
 into the meaning of the term, when, as all 
 must admit, the term, apart from the context, 
 does not suggest either a limited or universal 
 application. 
 
 Had we occasion to speak of the several 
 Christian congregations of a province or 
 nation in their separate capacity, it would be 
 quite in accordance with the scriptural idiom 
 to designate them the Churches of that region. 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 25 
 
 None can forget how frequently the apostle 
 speaks of the Churches of Syria and Achaia, 
 Galatia and Asia. So, if we required to speak 
 of the individual congregations of Christians 
 in Ireland — the separate Christian societies 
 scattered over the country — we might denom- 
 inate them the Churches of Ireland, there 
 being nothing in existing ecclesiastical usages 
 to make such language either unintelligible 
 or liable to be misunderstood. But it deserves 
 to be noticed that when we use such phrases 
 as the "Established Church of Scotland/' the 
 " Episcopal Church of America " or the 
 " Presbyterian Church of Ireland/ 7 there is 
 no departure whatever from the scriptural 
 sense of the word. The meaning of the word 
 in Scripture, as we have seen, invariably is a 
 society of Christians, and this is precisely its 
 meaning in any of the above phrases, the 
 context, at the same time, limiting the Chris- 
 tians in question to those professing certain 
 principles and belonging to a particular 
 country. When we employ, for instance, such 
 a designation as the Presbyterian Church of 
 Ireland, the word Church is used precisely in 
 
 3 
 
26 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 the scriptural sense, to denote a society of 
 Christians, which we learn from the context 
 professes Presbyterian principles and resides 
 in Ireland. 
 
 The propriety of applying the term to sig- 
 nify the Christian people of a country does 
 not arise from the fact that they are ever as- 
 sembled in one congregation, either personally 
 or by representatives, but from the fact that 
 the mind contemplates them as a collective 
 body. All saints in heaven and believers on 
 earth are styled the Church, not because they 
 are assembled either literally or figuratively, 
 but because, in the view of the mind, they 
 are regarded as a great society, separated from 
 the world, and united by common principles 
 into one great brotherhood. And so the 
 Christians of any denomination, though com- 
 posing a multitude of congregations, may, in 
 their aggregate capacity, be properly styled a 
 Church, not because they are either figura- 
 tively or literally assembled, but because, in 
 the view of the mind, they are regarded as a 
 collective body, distinguished from others, 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 27 
 
 and united among themselves, by the profes- 
 sion of a common creed. 
 
 It was once doubted whether the Scriptures 
 contain an example of the word Church 
 being applied to the Christians of a country. 
 The science of biblical criticism has now set 
 that question at rest. The true reading of 
 Acts ix. 31 is, " Then had the Church rest 
 throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Sa- 
 maria; and walking in the fear of the Lord, 
 and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, was 
 multiplied." No man with the slightest pre- 
 tensions to scholarship can now hesitate about 
 receiving this as the original form of the text, 
 when it is known that the lately discovered 
 MS. — the Codex Sinaiticus — is in its favor, 
 no less than A, B, C, these four being at once 
 the most ancient and valuable manuscripts of 
 the New Testament now extant.* Not to 
 
 * The ancient MSS. of the Greek Testament which 
 are still in existence, and to which critics appeal for the 
 settlement of the inspired text, are, as a matter of con- 
 venience and for the sake of easy reference, designated 
 by alphabetical letters. The one marked A was probably 
 Avritten in the first half of the fifth century. It was pre- 
 sented to the English Charles I. in 1628 by the patriarch 
 
28 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 speak of the evidence derivable from versions 
 and Fathers, the united voices of these four 
 MSS. is enough to settle the correct form of 
 any text: their testimony as to the original 
 reading of Acts ix. 31 none can question; 
 and to that passage we confidently point as a 
 clear instance of the word Church being ap- 
 plied to the Christians of a country, viewed 
 as one collective society, though in reality 
 divided into many separate congregations. 
 
 Some writers, indeed, give a different ac- 
 count of the matter. They tell us that the 
 
 I 
 of Constantinople, and is preserved in the British Mu- 
 seum. It contains the whole Greek Bible, with a few 
 chasms in the New Testament. B is also a MS. of the 
 whole Greek Bible. It belongs to the fourth century, 
 and since 1450 has been in the Vatican Library. C was 
 written in the fifth century, and is now in the Royal 
 Library at Paris. It contains fragments of the Greek 
 Old Testament, and of every part of the New Testament. 
 The Codex Sinaiticus (also marked N) is the oldest MS. 
 of the New Testament that is known to be in existence. 
 It probably belongs to the fourth century, and is com- 
 plete. The celebrated Russian critic, Teschendorf, found 
 it in 1859 in the convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai ; 
 hence its title. This is the one which is referred to in 
 the text. P. 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 29 
 
 universal community of Christians in heaven 
 and on earth is called in Scripture the Church, 
 not because they are viewed as one great 
 brotherhood, united by common principles, 
 but because they "are at all times truly and 
 properly assembled in Jesus." It is a mere 
 fancy to suppose that the mind ever takes 
 such a fact into account when employing the 
 term in its universal application ; but if so, 
 it does not alter the case. The Christians of 
 a particular district, or of a province, or of a 
 nation, may be properly designated a Church 
 for the same reasons, because they also "are 
 at all times truly and properly assembled in 
 Jesus." There is no sense in which all the 
 Christians on earth and in heaven are "as- 
 sembled in Jesus " that the Christians of any 
 particular country are not thus assembled. If 
 the whole is assembled, so also are the parts. 
 Take the matter either way, the Christians of 
 a district, or a province, or a kingdom, hold- 
 ing certain principles in common, if viewed 
 as a collective community, are a Church, 
 exactly in the sense of the Scriptures. They 
 are a Society of Christians. 
 
30 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 GOVEKNMENT OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
 The Christian society on earth, or, as it is 
 usually called, the Church, is represented in 
 the Scriptures as a kingdom. It was of his 
 Church that the Lord Jesus spake when he 
 said to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this 
 world." John xviii. 36. The fact of its being 
 a kingdom necessarily implies at least three 
 things — first, a king or governor; secondly, 
 subjects; thirdly, laws. In the Church or 
 kingdom of God, the king is Christ; the sub- 
 jects are believers and their children; the laws 
 are the Scriptures of truth. 
 
 Every king has officers under him who are 
 charged with the execution of his laws, and 
 who have authority from the crown to do 
 justice and judgment. Judges and magis- 
 trates are the office-bearers of a kingdom, de- 
 riving their power from the monarch under 
 whom they serve, and putting the laws in force 
 among all ranks and classes of the people. 
 Hence a very palpable division of a kingdom 
 is into rulers and ruled — those whose duty is 
 to administer the law, and those who are 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 31 
 
 bound to obey it. The same distinction holds 
 in the kingdom of Christ. It also consists of 
 rulers and ruled — the office-bearers entrusted 
 with the dispensation of the laws, and the 
 people who are commanded to yield them 
 submission. This is very plain, from Heb. 
 xiii. 17: "Obey them that have the rule over 
 you, and submit yourselves: for they watch 
 for your souls, as they that must give ac- 
 count." It is clear from this passage that 
 there are some in the Church whose duty it is 
 to rule; they are the office-bearers of the 
 Church. It is no less clear that there are 
 others in the Church whose duty is to obey; 
 they are the private members — the subjects of 
 the kingdom — the people. 
 
 But in every society where it is the ac- 
 knowledged duty of some parties to exercise 
 authority, and of others to practice submis- 
 sion, there must be what is called government ; 
 for in such authority exercised on the one 
 hand, and in such submission rendered on the 
 other, the essence of all government consists. 
 Even were there no passage in the Scriptures 
 but that last quoted bearing upon the subject, 
 
32 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 it is undeniable that government was estab- 
 lished in the apostolic Church. If govern- 
 ment existed, some form of government must 
 have been adopted ; . for to say there was es- 
 tablished in the kingdom of Christ govern- 
 ment without a form of government is absurd. 
 History tells us of many ecclesiastical and 
 political wonders; but of all the strange things 
 that have been witnessed in the world or in 
 the Church since the beginning of time, there 
 has never yet appeared government without a 
 form of government. The thing is impossi- 
 ble. Government in itself is an abstraction. 
 The moment it puts forth power, it becomes 
 a reality — it stands before the world a visible 
 thing — it assumes a form. 
 
 That there was government in the apos- 
 tolic Church, and that this government exist- 
 ed under a certain form, seems clear to dem- 
 onstration. To determine with precision what 
 this form was is a matter of great conse- 
 quence, for it must be evident to all that a 
 plan of Church government, instituted by the 
 apostles of the Lord, acting under the guid- 
 ance of the Holy Spirit, must carry with it a 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 33 
 
 degree of lawfulness and authority that no 
 human system, though in itself a master-piece 
 of wisdom — made venerable by age, or recom- 
 mended by expediency — ever can exhibit; 
 and that every form of Church government 
 is deserving of respect only so far as it con- 
 forms in its principles to that divine original. 
 But there are obvious reasons that make it a 
 matter of some difficulty to ascertain with 
 accuracy the system of ecclesiastical polity 
 that was established in the New Testament 
 Church. 
 
 1. The apostles, writing to Christians who 
 were themselves members of the apostolic 
 Church, and of course well acquainted with 
 its organization, did not judge it necessary to 
 enter into detailed description of the Chris- 
 tian society. To do so would have been un- 
 natural. They do occasionally state facts 
 bearing on Church government, and hint in- 
 directly at prevailing practices. These hints 
 and facts were sufficiently suggestive and in- 
 telligible to the persons originally addressed, 
 but by us, who live in a distant age, in 
 a foreign country and among associations 
 
34 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 widely different, they are not so easily under- 
 stood. 
 
 2. They do not even arrange such facts as 
 bear upon the question in systematic order. 
 If man had had the making of the Bible, it 
 would have been a very different book ; but 
 as that circumstance was not left to our 
 option, we must take it as we find it. On 
 examination, we see that it teaches nothing in 
 scientific order. Even morality and doctrine 
 are not there arranged in regular system, but 
 are conveyed in detached portions, and our 
 industry is stimulated by having to gather 
 the scattered fragments, to compare them with 
 each other, and to work them up into order 
 for ourselves. So ecclesiastical polity is not 
 taught in Scripture methodically; but away 
 over the wide field of revelation, facts and 
 hints and circumstances lie scattered, which 
 we are to search for, and examine, and com- 
 bine, and classify. Now, all do not agree in 
 the arrangement of these facts, nor in the 
 inferences that legitimately flow from them, 
 nor in the mode of constructing a system 
 from the detached material. 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 35 
 
 These things make it difficult to ascertain 
 with accuracy, and still more so, with unan- 
 imity, the form of Church government that 
 existed in apostolic days.* But difficult as it 
 
 * A chief reason why the principles of government -r 
 are not prescribed at length and in a formal way in the 
 New Testament is this : While the Church of God was 
 reorganized after the ascension of our Lord, it remained 
 essentially the same with the Old Testament body ; and 
 when its separate organization took place, it was on the 
 ancient model. The Eldership existed in the Jewish 
 Church, and is the permanent essential office of the 
 organization under both dispensations. Hence, the cre- 
 ation of it is nowhere recorded in the New Testament, 
 as in the case of deacons and apostles, because the 
 latter were created to meet new and special exigencies, 
 while the former was transmitted from the earliest 
 times. (See Dr. J. A. Alexander's Primitive Church 
 Officers, p. 28.) Archbishop Whately says "it is 
 likely that several of the earliest Christian churches 
 were converted synagogues, which became Christian 
 churches as soon as the members, or as soon as the main 
 part of their members, acknowledged Jesus as the Mes- 
 siah." In such cases, he says, " the apostles did not 
 there so much form a Christian church (or congregation, 
 ecclesia) as make an existing congregation Christian by 
 introducing the Christian sacraments and worship, and 
 establishing whatever regulations were necessary for the 
 newly adopted faith, leaving the machinery (if I may 
 so speak) of government unchanged, the rulers of syna- 
 
36 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 seems, it is proved quite possible, by a thorough 
 and unprejudiced examination of the Scrip- 
 tures, to discover the main principles that 
 entered into the constitution of the primitive 
 Church. We say the main principles — more 
 than these we need not expect to find. The 
 word of God, except in some rare instances, 
 never enters into details — it states principles. 
 This is a very noticeable peculiarity of the 
 divine legislation that deserves a passing 
 remark. In every civilized country it may 
 be observed how those entrusted with the 
 duty of government aim to provide a law for 
 every specific case. The human legislator 
 descends to details. The result of this in our 
 
 gogues, elders and other officers (whether spiritual or 
 ecclesiastical, or both) being already provided for in the 
 existing institutions." ("The Kingdom of Christ De- 
 lineated," pp. 84-86.) Hence, as the church-member- 
 ship of the children of believers is not formally com- 
 manded in the New Testament, because it already 
 existed, so the permanent governmental principles of 
 the Church are not explicitly enunciated, because they 
 were already existing as facts. In both cases unrepealed 
 laws are implied in the New Testament history, and 
 instances of obedience to them in the apostolic Church 
 are given for our guidance. P. 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 37 
 
 own country is that the common and statute 
 laws of England are so bulky that the books 
 in which they are written would make of 
 themselves a magnificent library. Parliament 
 meets every year for the express purpose of 
 constructing new and amending old laws, to 
 suit the ever-varying circumstances of the 
 country and the times; and notwithstanding 
 all, cases occur daily in the public courts 
 wherein the most accomplished jurists have 
 to acknowledge that the existing laws deter- 
 mine nothing. But observe how the divine 
 law proceeds on a method quite different. It 
 rarely enters into specific details, but lays 
 down general principles any one of which is 
 quite sufficient to decide a whole multitude 
 of cases. Instead, for instance, of attempting 
 to prescribe every form of good that it is 
 right for a man to perform to his neighbor, 
 it lays down a principle quite sufficient to 
 meet every case — Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 bor as thyself. Instead of enumerating the 
 different ways by which children are to dis- 
 charge the duties that they owe their parents, 
 Scripture enacts this general law, holding 
 
 4 
 
38 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 good in every case — Honor thy father and 
 thy mother. Declining to specify every sem- 
 blance of sin that it were well for Christians 
 to avoid, the statutes of the Lord direct us to 
 — Abstain from all appearance of evil. Hu- 
 man legislation enters into minute details, 
 but divine legislation enacts general princi- 
 ples. The result is that while there is per- 
 haps more room left for difference of opinion 
 in the interpretation and application of the 
 enactments of a code of law constructed on 
 the latter system, yet this disadvantage is 
 more than counterbalanced by the fact that 
 the laws of God are in themselves perfect; 
 that they do not change with the ever varying 
 circumstances of countries and of times; that 
 they meet every case which can possibly occur; 
 and that they are compressed into a reason- 
 able size, being all written in a book so small 
 that it can be lifted in the hand or carried in 
 the pocket. Now, the Scripture teaches us 
 Church government as it teaches morality. 
 It does not furnish minute details, but it 
 
 Supplies THE GREAT LIVING PRINCIPLES 
 
 that entered into the polity of the Apostolic 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 39 
 
 Church. What these main principles were 
 it is now our purpose to ascertain.* 
 
 It is the common practice of writers, in 
 discussing the important subject of ecclesias- 
 tical government, to select some one of our 
 modern churches which happens to be a 
 favorite, delineate its characteristic features, 
 and then proceed to show that they are a 
 reflection of the pattern presented in the 
 word of God. That this plan has some 
 recommendations we can readily believe, but 
 it is no less obvious that it is liable to grave 
 objections. It seems to assume at the com- 
 mencement the conclusion to which the 
 reasoner can only hope to conduct us after 
 a sound process of logic. It somehow pro- 
 duces the fatal impression that the writer has 
 determined in the first place that his view of 
 the subject is right, and then goes to Scrip- 
 ture to search for proof of it. The author 
 may be the most impartial and truth-loving 
 of men, but his very plan betrays a preference 
 for some particular system, and thus, at the 
 
 * This paragraph was suggested by reading Dr. 
 Paley's Sermon on Kom. xiv. 7, p. 521. 
 
40 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHUKCH ? 
 
 outset, awakes the prejudices of many readers. 
 Besides, it affords opportunities for viewing 
 passages of Scripture apart from their con- 
 nection, and tempts writers to quote their 
 favorite texts, the sound of which only is 
 upon their side. For these reasons we do not 
 choose to adopt this method on the present 
 occasion. 
 
 The plan of procedure we propose is more 
 unusual, though, we trust, not less satisfactory. 
 "We will examine the Holy Scriptures with a 
 view of ascertaining from them the various 
 facts that bear on the government of the 
 apostolic Church. We will produce the pas- 
 sages, contemplate them in their immediate 
 connection, unfold their meaning, and try if 
 by their aid we can arrive at great princi- 
 ples. We will then turn to our modern 
 Churches, view the different forms of ecclesi- 
 astical polity that exist in the world at pres- 
 ent, and see which of them it is that embodies 
 all or most of these principles. When this is 
 done, we shall have found the denomination 
 that, in point of government, is best entitled, 
 to be regarded as the apostolic Church. 
 
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 41 
 
 This process of reasoning is so very clear 
 and simple that there is no room for practi- 
 cing deception either on ourselves or our read- 
 ers. The very humblest intellect may follow 
 our logic to the close. There are but two 
 steps until we arrive at the conclusion : 
 
 First, we are to ascertain from the unerring 
 word of God what were the main principles 
 in the government of the churches founded 
 by the apostles of the Lord ; % and, secondly, 
 we are to ascertain in which of our modern 
 Churches these main principles are most fully 
 acknowledged and carried out. 
 
 We will then apply to the settlement of the 
 matter an axiom radiant in the light of its 
 own self-evidence. That axiom is, the 
 
 MODERN CHURCH WHICH EMBODIES IN ITS 
 GOVERNMENT MOST APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES 
 COMES NEAREST IN ITS GOVERNMENT TO THE 
 
 APOSTOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 4 * 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 
 
 Ij^ROM a careful examination of the Scrip- 
 ture, we find at least four different kinds 
 of office-bearers in the apostolic Church 
 — 1. Apostles. 2. Evangelists. 3. Bishops, 
 also called pastors and teachers. 4. Deacons. 
 Each one of these had a right to exercise all 
 the offices inferior to his own, but one filling 
 an inferior had no right to discharge the 
 duties of a superior office. Thus, the apos- 
 tolic office included all the others, and a 
 bishop or elder had the right to act as a 
 deacon, so long as his doing so did not impede 
 the due discharge of duties peculiarly his 
 own. A deacon, on the other hand, had no 
 right to exercise the office of a bishop, nor 
 had a bishop any authority to take on him 
 the duties of an apostle. Each superior office 
 included all below it. 
 
 Two of these offices — those of apostle and 
 evangelist — were temporary, necessary at the 
 first establishment of Christianity, but not 
 
 42 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 43. 
 
 necessary to be perpetuated. The apostles 
 Mere witnesses of the resurrection of the Lord 
 Jesus, endowed with the power of working 
 miracles and of conferring the Holy Ghost 
 by the laying on of their hands, the infallible 
 expounders of the divine will and the found- 
 ers of the Christian Church; and having 
 served the purpose for which they were sent, 
 they disappeared out of the world, and, as 
 apostles, have left no successors. Evangelists 
 were missionaries — men who traveled from 
 place to place preaching the gospel, and who 
 acted as the assistants and delegates of the 
 apostles in organizing churches.* Of these, 
 Philip and Timothy and Titus were the most 
 eminent examples. It deserves to be re- 
 marked, with regard to these temporary or, 
 as they are usually called, extraordinary office- 
 
 * While our Presbyterian "Form of Government" 
 does not, in Ch. III., expressly mention evangelists 
 among "the ordinary and perpetual officers in the 
 church," it does provide, in Ch. XV., an ordination ser- 
 vice for such ministers " to preach the gospel, administer 
 sealing ordinances and organize churches in frontier or 
 destitute settlements." In the missionary work of the 
 Church they are still needed and provided for. P. 
 
44 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 bearers, that their sphere of duty was not 
 limited to a congregation, but extended to 
 the Church at large. They were members of 
 any Christian society within whose bounds 
 they resided for a time, but their mission was 
 to the world, and their authority extended to 
 the Church universal. 
 
 The offices of bishop and deacon were, on 
 the other hand, designed to be perpetuated in 
 the Church. The bishops, or, as they are 
 more usually called, elders,* and pastors, and 
 teachers, were office-bearers, whose duty it 
 was to instruct and govern the Church. The 
 deacons had charge of temporal concerns, and 
 were entrusted with the special duty of minis- 
 tering to the necessities of the poor. The 
 Church can never cease to have need of these 
 two offices, so long as its members have 
 spiritual and temporal wants to be supplied. 
 But it is to be observed, with regard to the 
 bishops and deacons, that they were mainly 
 congregational officers. The sphere of their 
 duty was not so general as that of the apos- 
 
 *This is assumed for the present: it will be proved 
 afterward. 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 45 
 
 ties, prophets and evangelists, but lay for the 
 most part within the bounds of that particu- 
 lar church or district for which they were 
 appointed to act. 
 
 Dr. Campbell thus expounds the special ne- 
 cessity that existed in the primitive Church, 
 both for the temporary and perpetual office- 
 bearers: "To take a similitude from tem- 
 poral things: it is one thing to conquer a 
 kingdom and become master of it, and another 
 thing to govern it when conquered so as to 
 retain the possession which has been acquired. 
 The same agents and the same expedients are 
 not properly adapted to both. For the first 
 of these purposes, there was a set of extraor- 
 dinary ministers or officers in the Church, who, 
 like the military forces intended for conquest, 
 could not be fixed to a particular spot whilst 
 there remained any provinces to conquer. 
 Their charge was, in a manner, universal, and 
 their functions ambulatory. For the second, 
 there was a set of ordinary ministers Or 
 pastors, corresponding to civil governors, to 
 whom it was necessary to allot distinct 
 charges or precincts, to which their services 
 
46 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 were chiefly to be confined, in order to in- 
 struct the people, to preside in the public 
 worship and religious ordinances, and to give 
 them the necessary assistance for the regula- 
 tion of their conduct. Without this second 
 arrangement, the acquisitions made could not 
 have been long retained. There must have 
 ensued a universal relapse into idolatry and 
 infidelity. This distinction of ministers into 
 extraordinary and ordinary has been admit- 
 ted by controvertists on both sides, and there- 
 fore cannot justly be considered as introduced 
 (which sometimes happens to distinctions) to 
 serve a hypothesis." * With these prelimi- 
 nary observations, we proceed in search of — 
 
 THE FIKST PKINCIPLE. 
 
 All offices in the Christian Church take 
 origin from the Lord Jesus. Himself is the 
 Author and embodiment of them all; he is 
 the Apostle of our profession; he is an 
 Evangelist, preaching peace to them that are 
 afar off, and to them that are nigh; he is the 
 
 * Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, Lecture iv., 
 3d Edition, London, 1824. 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 47 
 
 great Pastor or Shepherd of the sheep — the 
 Bishop of souls; and he is the Deacon or 
 servant who came not to be ministered to, 
 but to minister. All offices in the Church are 
 embodied in the person of Christ. 
 
 The apostles were the only office-bearers 
 chosen during the life-time of the Lord. They 
 held their appointments immediately from 
 himself. They were called to the work of 
 the ministry by his voice, and they received 
 their commission at his hands. Simon and 
 Andrew were casting their nets into the Lake 
 of Galilee, as Jesus walked upon the beach, 
 but at his call they left their nets to follow 
 him through the world. The sons of Zebedee 
 heard his voice, and forthwith they forgot 
 both father and mother in their ambition to 
 become fishers of men. When Christ said, 
 " Follow me," Levi forsook the receipt of 
 custom, and was a publican no more. The 
 personal call of the Lord Jesus w T as then, and 
 is still, the first and best of all authority to 
 hold office in the Church of God. Let a man 
 only satisfy us that he holds his appointment 
 directly from the Lord, as the apostles did, 
 
48 AVHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH ? 
 
 and we require no more to induce us to sub- 
 mit to him. 
 
 But after the Lord had ascended to heaven, 
 the personal call, except in case of Paul, who 
 was one born out of due time, was not the 
 passport of any man either to the ministry or 
 apostleship. Men were no more put into 
 office by the living voice of the Lord Jesus. 
 The departure of the Master, and the vacancy 
 left in the list of apostles by the death of 
 Judas, gave opportunity for bringing into 
 operation a new principle. The first chapter 
 of the Acts of the Apostles brings the whole 
 case before us. Let us specially examine the 
 passage — Acts i. 13-26 — that we may have 
 full possession of the facts. It appears that 
 in the interval between the ascension and the 
 day of Pentecost the disciples met for prayer 
 and supplication in an upper room of the city 
 of Jerusalem. The mother and brethren of 
 Jesus were present, as were also the eleven 
 apostles. Taken together, they numbered one 
 hundred and twenty in all. Peter rose and 
 addressed the company. He reminded them 
 of the vacancy in the apostleship. Judas, 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 49 
 
 who betrayed the Master, was dead, and the 
 office that he forfeited by his transgression 
 must be conferred upon another. He states 
 the necessary qualifications of him who was 
 to be the successor of Judas : he must be one 
 who had intercourse with the eleven from the 
 commencement of Christ's ministry to the 
 close. He states the duty of the new apostle : 
 he was to be with the others a witness of 
 Christ's resurrection. Such was the case that 
 Peter put before the men and brethren met 
 together in that upper room of Jerusalem. 
 We then read in verse 23: "They ap- 
 pointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who 
 was surnamed Justus, and Matthias." In 
 consequence of this double choice, it became 
 necessary to decide which should be regarded 
 as the true apostle, which, after prayer, was 
 done by casting lots. But let it be particu- 
 larly observed that, while Peter explained 
 the necessary qualifications and the peculiar 
 duties of the office, the appointment of the 
 person did not rest with Peter, but with the 
 men and brethren to whom the address of 
 Peter was directed. Further, it is not to be 
 
 5 
 
50 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 forgotten that the office to which Matthias' 
 succeeded is in the 20th verse termed a 
 bishopric, and how it is said in the 25th 
 verse, he had "to take part of this ministry 
 .and apostleship." The men and brethren, at 
 the instigation of Peter, exercised the right 
 of appointing a man to the bishopric — that is, 
 to the office of the bishop— and to take part in 
 the ministry. In the apostolic Church the 
 people appointed Matthias to be a minister — 
 a bishop — an apostle.* The case recorded in 
 
 * The argument in reference to the permanent officers 
 of the church will not be weakened if we admit that in 
 setting apart Matthias as an apostle there was no bal- 
 loting or choice by the church, but that in this case, as 
 -well as in that of the other apostles, the Head of the 
 Church directly chose him. We may concede that 
 Justus and Matthias were the only disciples who possessed 
 .the necessary qualifications for the apostleship ; that 
 " the part performed by the apostles or disciples in this 
 grave transaction was entirely ministerial, and consisted 
 in ascertaining who were eligible, on the principles laid 
 down by Peter, and then placing the man thus selected 
 in the presence of the multitude, or rather before God, 
 as objects of his sovereign choice;" and that the "lots" 
 were not votes or ballots cast by the members of the 
 church, but "the lots of the two candidates " — i. e., the lots 
 which were to choose between them, and were probably 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 51 
 
 Acts xiv. 23 is to the same effect, though, 
 from a mistranslation, the force of it is lost 
 upon the English reader. The authorized 
 version represents the two apostles, Barnabas 
 and Paul, as ordaining elders in every church ; 
 whereas the true meaning of the word in the 
 original is "to elect by a show of hands" — 
 a fact now admitted by the best expositors.* 
 We must not allow a faulty translation to rob 
 us of the testimony of Scripture to an import- 
 ant fact — namely, that the elders of the New 
 
 inscribed with their respective names," one of which 
 was drawn under the divine guidance, thus showing that 
 Matthias, whose a lot" that was, was the choice of God. 
 We may grant this in reference to the appointment of 
 an apostle who must have companied with the eleven 
 all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among 
 them, beginning from the baptism* of John unto that 
 same day that he was taken up from them, so that he 
 could with them be a direct witness of the Lord's res- 
 urrection, and who, therefore, can have no official suc- 
 cessors now living on the earth — we may grant this 
 without weakening the argument, drawn from the other 
 facts quoted in this section, in reference to the election of 
 elders and deacons, the two permanent orders in the 
 Church. P. 
 
 * See Dean Alford on the passage. 
 
52 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 Testament Church were appointed to office by 
 the popular vote. 
 
 The sixth chapter of Acts comes next 
 under consideration. At the period to which 
 the narrative there recorded refers the dis- 
 ciples at Jerusalem had grown numerous. 
 The Grecians began to complain against the 
 Hebrews, how that their widows were ne- 
 glected in the daily ministrations. Hitherto 
 the twelve had attended to the wants of the 
 poor, but their hands were at the same time 
 full of other work, and among such a multi- 
 tude, it is not surprising that some were 
 neglected, nor is it very wonderful, consider- 
 ing what human nature is, that some were 
 found to murmur, even when apostles man- 
 aged the business. What was now to be 
 done? A division of offices w r as clearly a 
 necessity. But were the apostles to take it 
 on themselves to select persons on whom 
 should devolve the duty of attending to the 
 temporal wants of the community? Had 
 they done so, few would dispute their right, 
 or venture to charge inspired men with the 
 exercise of a despotic or unwarranted author- 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 53 
 
 ity. But instead of this they adopted a 
 course of procedure unaccountable to us on 
 any other principle than that they purposely 
 managed the matter in such a way as would 
 guide the church in the appointment of office- 
 bearers when themselves would be removed, 
 and thus form a precedent for future ages. 
 The apostles summoned the multitude to- 
 gether and explained the case. They said 
 their appropriate business as ministers was 
 with the word of God. They said it was 
 unreasonable for them to have to neglect the/^^ 
 spiritual province in order to attend to tern- y7,* 
 poral concerns, and they called upon the 
 brethren to look out from among themselves 
 seven men of good character, gifted with wis- 
 dom and the Spirit of God, who might be 
 appointed to take charge of this secular busi- 
 ness, and who would leave the apostles free to 
 attend to duties peculiarly their own — namely, 
 prayer and the ministry of the word. "And 
 the saying pleased the whole multitude: and 
 they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and 
 of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Procho- 
 rus, and Nicanor, and Simon, and Parmenas, 
 
 5* 
 
54 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 and Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, whom 
 they set before the apostles ; and when they 
 had prayed they faid their hands on them." 
 Acts vi. 5, 6. The seven men whom the 
 multitude chose on this occasion were the first 
 deacons. Though not expressly called so in 
 the Scriptures, yet they are admitted to have 
 been such by almost universal consent. The 
 lowest office-bearers, therefore, in the apos- 
 tolic Church, were chosen by the people. 
 
 Here, then, are three clear facts fully suf- 
 ficient to be the basis of a principle. The 
 first chapter of Acts supplies us with an 
 instance of the assembled men and brethren 
 appointing to office one who was both an 
 apostle and a minister. The fourteenth chap- 
 ter shows that the elders of the congregation 
 were chosen by popular suffrage. The sixth 
 chapter furnishes an example of the whole 
 multitude of the disciples choosing seven men 
 to be deacons. On these three facts, clear and 
 irresistible, we found the principle of popu- 
 lar election. The conclusion that follows 
 from this evidence we find it absolutely im- 
 possible to evade — namely, that in the apos- 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 55 
 
 tolic Church the office-bearers were chosen by 
 the people. 
 
 THE SECOND PKINCIPLE. 
 
 There is a class of office-bearers very fre- 
 quently mentioned as existing in the early 
 Church, and to which, as yet, we have only 
 made a slight allusion. We mean the elder, 
 or presbyter, as he is frequently called. This 
 church-officer is often mentioned in the Acts 
 and Epistles, but an attentive reader will not 
 fail to remark that no passage of Scripture 
 ever speaks of him as holding an office distinct 
 from the bishop. The same verse never speaks 
 of bishops and elders. When Paul, for ex- 
 ample, writes to the Philippian church (i. 1), 
 he mentions the bishops and deacons, but 
 says nothing of elders. When James directs 
 the sick to call for the elders of the church 
 (v. 14), he says nothing of bishops. If the 
 offices of bishop and elder were quite distinct 
 — if a bishop were an office-bearer bearing 
 rule over a number of elders — it does seem 
 strange that no passage of Scripture speaks at 
 
56 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH ? 
 
 the same time of bishops and elders. There 
 is one supposition, and only one, that would 
 furnish a satisfactory reason for this fact. If 
 the two terms be only different names for the 
 same office, then to speak of bishops and elders 
 would be a violation of the laws of language 
 — it would be tautology — it would be the 
 same thing as to speak of presbyters and 
 elders, or of bishops and bishops. To sup- 
 pose that the two offices were identical ac- 
 counts sufficiently for the significant fact that 
 they are never mentioned together in the same 
 passage of the word of God, for it is plain 
 that, one of the terms being adequate to indi- 
 cate the office-bearers intended, there was no 
 need to introduce the other at the same time. 
 Still there must be something stronger than 
 a presumption to warrant us in saying that 
 the two terms were only different names for 
 the same person. However improbable it 
 may appear, it is still possible that these two, 
 bishop and elder, were distinct office-bearers, 
 even though the same passage never speaks 
 of them together. This obliges us to consult 
 the Scriptures further on this question. 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 57 
 
 The first passage that comes before us is 
 Titus i. 5-7: "For this cause I left thee in 
 Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the 
 things that are wanting, and ordain elders in 
 every city, as I had appointed thee: if any 
 be blameless, the husband of one wife, having 
 faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly. 
 For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward 
 of God; not self-willed, not soon angry, not 
 given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy 
 lucre." This passage strongly confirms the 
 truth of the supposition already made, that 
 the two offices were identical. It appears that 
 Paul left Titus behind him in Crete to ordain 
 elders in every city. To guide him in the 
 discharge of his duty, the apostle proceeds to 
 state the qualifications of an elder. No private 
 member of the church was eligible to that 
 office unless he was a man of blameless life, the 
 husband of one wife, and had obedient chil- 
 dren ; "for," says he, "a bishop must be blame- 
 less, as the steward of God." Dr. King well 
 observes on this passage "that the term elder, 
 used at the commencement, is exchanged for 
 the term bishop in the conclusion, while the 
 
58 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHUECH? 
 
 same office-bearer is spoken of. An elder must 
 have such and such qualifications. Why ? 
 Because a bishop must be blameless, as the 
 steward of God. Does not this identify the 
 elder and the bishop ? If not, identification 
 is impossible. Were it said the lord mayor 
 of London must devote himself to his duties, 
 for the chief magistrate of such a city has 
 great responsibilities, would not the language 
 indicate that the lord mayor and the chief 
 magistrate were the same office-bearer? Other- 
 wise, the representation would be absurd; for 
 why should the mayor devote himself to his 
 duties because some other person had great 
 responsibilities? Yet the mayor and chief 
 magistrate are not more indeutified in this 
 comparison than are the elder and bishop in 
 Paul's instructions to Titus."* It must be 
 evident to every unprejudiced man that the 
 apostle would never state as a reason for or- 
 daining none but men of good moral charac- 
 ter to the office of the eldership, that a bishop 
 must be blameless, if he did not understand 
 
 * Dr. King's Exposition and Defence, pp. 176-7. 
 Edinr., 1853. 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 59 
 
 that elder and bishop were only different 
 designations for the same office. On any 
 other supposition the language of the apostle 
 would be without coherence and without 
 sense. 
 
 Again, we turn to 2 John i., and we find 
 that the apostle John styles himself an elder:* 
 "The elder unto the elect lady and her chil- 
 dren, whom I love in the truth." Next 
 comes up 1 Peter v. 1, and we find there that 
 the apostle Peter calls himself an elder: "The 
 elders which are among you I exhort, who am. 
 also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings 
 of Christ." That John and Peter were both 
 bishops all admit, but these passages show 
 that they were elders also. This, however, 
 brings us but a step to the conclusion. It may 
 be true that every general is an officer, but it 
 does not follow from this that every officer 
 is a general. A bishop may, like John and 
 Peter, be an elder, but it does not necessarily 
 follow that an elder is a bishop. This may 
 be true, but we require more proof before we 
 can reach such a conclusion. This we have 
 * Presbuteros, presbyter, elder. 
 
60 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHUKCH ? 
 
 as fully as can be desired in Acts xx. 17-28. 
 We read there how Paul sent for the elders 
 of the church at Ephesus to meet him at 
 Miletus. He spoke of his ministry in their 
 city, the great theme of his preaching being 
 repentance toward God and faith toward the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. He foretold the afflictions 
 awaiting him at Jerusalem and elsewhere, and 
 he saddened their hearts by saying to them 
 that they should see his face no more. And 
 he warned them to take heed to themselves 
 and to "the flock over which the Holy Ghost 
 had made them overseers" — that is, bishops, as 
 the word is elsewhere rendered. Every reader 
 acquainted with the original is aware that the 
 word translated overseers, in Acts xx. 28, is 
 the very same as that translated bishops in 
 Phil. i. 1, so that we have here the evidence 
 of inspiration that the elders of Ephesus were 
 bishops by appointment of the Holy Ghost. 
 This makes the chain of reasoning strong and 
 conclusive. Bishops, as we have seen, were 
 elders, and elders, as we now see, were 
 bishops. This conducts us to a second princi- 
 ple—namely, that in the apostolic church 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 61 
 
 THE OFFICES OF BISHOP AND| ELDER WERE 
 
 identical. An elder was not inferior to a 
 bishop, nor was a bishop superior to an elder. 
 It was the same office-bearer who was known 
 by these different names. 
 
 We are not disposed to attach much value 
 to the opinion of such a man as Edward Gib- 
 bon on any question of doctrine or morality, 
 but that distinguished historian was compe- 
 tent to grapple with a matter of fact, and 
 may be heard as one who, from being un- 
 prejudiced in favor of any religious system 
 whatever, was in a position to judge impar- 
 tially in a case of this kind. Speaking of 
 the government and administration of the 
 Church prior to the Council of Nice, he 
 says, "The public functions of religion were 
 solely entrusted to the established minis- 
 ters of the Church, bishops and the presby- 
 ters, two appellations which, in their first origin, 
 appear to have distinguished the same office and 
 the same order of persons. The name of pres- 
 byter was expressive of their age, or rather of 
 their gravity and wisdom. The title of bishop 
 denoted their inspection over the faith and 
 6 
 
62 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 manners of the Christians who were commit- 
 ted to their pastoral care." * 
 
 THE THIED PEINCIPLE. 
 
 Let it not be forgotten that we have now 
 ascertained that presbyter and bishop were, 
 in their origin, only different names for the 
 same ecclesiastical office-bearer. Enough has 
 been found in the Scriptures to satisfy us that 
 bishops were elders, and that elders were 
 bishops, in the apostolic Church. We are 
 warranted, therefore, to regard this fact as 
 fully substantiated, while we proceed to the 
 discovery of a third principle. 
 
 The fourteenth chapter of Acts describes a 
 missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas. 
 There was an attempt made to stone them at 
 Iconium, but they fled to Lystra and Derbe. 
 When Paul made a cripple at Lycaonia leap 
 and walk, the priest of Jupiter brought oxen 
 and garlands to the gates, and it was with 
 some difficulty that the people, in their pagan 
 
 * History of the Decline and Fall, chap. xv. 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 63 
 
 ignorance, were restrained from paying divine 
 honors to the two preachers. But so fickle 
 were the sentiments of the multitude that 
 shortly afterward the great apostle was stoned 
 nearly to death at the very place where 
 he had almost been worshiped as a god. 
 Barely escaping with his life, Paul and his 
 companion revisited Derbe and Lystra, and 
 Iconium and Antioch, preaching the gospel, 
 confirming the souls of the disciples and ex- 
 horting them to continue in the faith. And 
 the sacred historian, in the narrative of this 
 evangelistic tour, informs us of this important 
 fact, that they appointed elders in every church. 
 His words are: "And when they had chosen 
 for them by suffrage elders in every church, 
 and had prayed with fasting, they commended 
 them to the Lord, on whom they believed." 
 Acts xiv. 23. We have seen already that a 
 Church in Scripture signifies any assembly of 
 Christians, however great or small. It was 
 the primitive practice to call the believers 
 residing in any town, however large, or in 
 any village, however small, the church of 
 that place. Many of these societies, collected 
 
64 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 from among the heathen by these pioneers of 
 Christianity, organized in the face of difficulty, 
 and thinned by intimidation, must have been 
 weak in point of numbers. Still, the two 
 apostles were not satisfied with appointing one 
 elder or bishop in each society, however small 
 in numbers; but as we are taught by the 
 Holy Spirit, they appointed elders in every 
 church. If, then, the evangelist Luke, 
 speaking as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, 
 is a true witness, there were more elders than 
 one in each congregation of the apostolic 
 Church. How many, whether two, three or 
 more, we are not informed, but that in each 
 church there was a plurality of elders is 
 clear. 
 
 We proceed once more to the twentieth 
 chapter of Acts. Here Paul is represented 
 as traveling from Greece on his way to Jeru- 
 salem. Having stopped a week at Troas, he 
 went upon his onward way, sometimes by sea 
 and sometimes by land, striving to reach the 
 Jewish capital before Pentecost. Having 
 touched at Miletus, a seaport of Ionia, thirty- 
 six miles south of Ephesus, he sent a message 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 65 
 
 to that city for the elders of the Church. The 
 words of inspiration are: "And from Miletus 
 he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of 
 the Church. " Acts xx. 17. From this it 
 appears the church of Ephesus had not only 
 one elder, but more, and we have already seen 
 that in verse 28 its elders are called bishops. 
 Unless language mean nothing, and the state- 
 ments of Scripture be as unintelligible as the 
 leaves of the Sibyl, there was a plurality of 
 elders or bishops in the church at Ephesus. 
 
 Still further. Philippi was a city on the 
 confines of ancient Thrace. To the classic 
 reader it is known as the place where Augus- 
 tus and Anthony wrested from Brutus and 
 Cassius, in a pitched battle, the empire of the 
 world ; to the Christian it is remarkable as 
 being the first spot in Europe where the ban- 
 ner of the Cross was unfurled and sinners 
 listened to the gospel of Jesus. There the 
 heart of the seller of purple was opened to 
 attend to the things that were spoken of Paul. 
 It was there that, for casting the spirit of 
 divination out of a soothsayer, Paul and Silas 
 were beaten by the magistrates and had their 
 6* 
 
66 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH ? 
 
 feet made fast in the stocks. It was there, at 
 the dead hour of night, when the foundations 
 of the prison shook, and every door in the 
 jail flew open, and every man's chains fell 
 from his arms, that the keeper of the prison 
 asked two of his prisoners the most important 
 question that was ever put by a sinner to a 
 minister of God: "Sirs, what must I do to 
 be saved?" In this town of Philippi a church 
 was organized, though in the face of determin- 
 ed opposition, and some ten or twelve years 
 after Paul's first visit he thought it right to 
 address to this church a letter. This letter 
 has been preserved. It finds a place in the 
 word of God. It is that known to us as the 
 Epistle to the Philippians. One has some 
 curiosity to read what an apostle thought it 
 good to write to a church at the head of 
 whose roll of members stood the names of 
 Lydia and the jailer. As might be expected, 
 it is full to the brim of precious and consoling 
 truths; but, what is more to our purpose at 
 present, we find these words in the first verse 
 of the first chapter: "Paul and Timotheus, 
 the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 67 
 
 in Jesus Christ which are at Philippi, with 
 the bishops and deacons." Philippi was, no 
 doubt, a considerable town, but, in point of 
 population and importance, it was no more to 
 such a city as Dublin or Liverpool than a 
 parish is to a diocese. Yet in modern times 
 one bishop is thought sufficient even for Lon- 
 don, where professing Christians are numbered 
 by millions, whereas a single Christian con- 
 gregation gathered out of a heathen popula- 
 tion, possessing ecclesiastical existence only 
 for ten or twelve years, exposed to contumely 
 and suffering for Christ's sake, and located in 
 a contemptible town on the outskirts of Mace- 
 donia, had a plurality of bishops. Paul, in 
 writing to that Church, addresses his Epistle 
 to the bishops and deacons. 
 
 Let the candid reader glance again at the 
 ground over which we have passed. He sees 
 that Paul, in writing his Epistle to the church 
 at Philippi, addressed it to the bishops. He 
 sees there were elders in the church at Ephesus 
 when Paul sent for them to Miletus. He 
 finds it stated that Barnabas and Paul ordained 
 elders in every church. How is it possible for 
 
68 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 him to resist the conclusion that in apostolic 
 days there was in each congregation a plural- 
 ity of elders, or, what we have seen amounts 
 to the same thing, a plurality of bishops? 
 This leads us to the third principle of apostolic 
 government — that in each church there 
 
 WAS A PLURALITY OF ELDERS. 
 
 THE FOURTH PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Ordination is the solemn designation of a 
 person to ecclesiastical office with the laying 
 on of hands. Every permanent office-bearer 
 in the Church, whether bishop or deacon, was 
 set apart solemnly to his office by the act of 
 ordination. In its outward form it consisted 
 of three things — fasting, prayer and imposi- 
 tion of hands. The imposition of hands was 
 used when spiritual gifts were conferred (Acts 
 viii. 17; xix. 6), and it w r as also practiced 
 when the sick were miraculously healed. 
 Mark xxvi. 18; Acts ix. 17; xxviii. 8. But, 
 distinct from all such cases, the laying on 
 of hands was used at the ordination of Church 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 69 
 
 office-bearers, and when no extraordinary or 
 miraculous gift was bestowed. Acts vi. 6 : xiii. 
 1-3; and 1 Tim. iv. 14; v. 22. The with- 
 drawment of miraculous powers cannot there- 
 fore be any valid reason why, at ordinations, 
 the practice should be set aside; the imposi- 
 tion of hands in such cases never was the 
 medium of imparting the Holy Ghost, but 
 only the form of investing with ecclesiastical 
 office. 
 
 The great question regarding ordination is 
 whether it is the act of one individual or more, 
 of one elder or many elders, of a bishop or a 
 presbytery. That the Lord Jesus may give 
 a special call to any laborer, and send him to 
 work in his vineyard, none disputes. There 
 can be very little doubt also that if an in- 
 spired apostle were still upon the earth, he 
 would have the right to ordain alone, if he 
 thought it right to do so. Nay, if some mod- 
 ern evangelist could show, as Titus could, that 
 an apostle had left him behind for this special 
 purpose, he, too, in virtue of the right con- 
 ferred upon him by a higher power, would 
 have the privilege of ordaining. Titus i. 5. 
 
70 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHUKCH? 
 
 Any one, therefore, claiming the right of 
 doing all that an evangelist did, would require 
 to show that, if not an apostle, he possesses, 
 like Titus, the authority delegated to him by 
 an apostle. But here every ruler in every 
 Church must fail. It remains, therefore, that 
 we examine the Scriptures to discover who it 
 was that in the absence of apostles, or those 
 delegated by apostles, had the privilege of 
 solemnly setting apart others to ecclesiastical 
 office, and especially to ascertain if this power 
 was lodged in one individual or in more. 
 
 First, we turn to 1 Tim. iv. 14. We have 
 there the ordination of Timothy. The apostle 
 exhorts his son in the faith to employ to good 
 purpose the gift of the ministry that had been 
 conferred upon him. He intimates that this 
 gift had been given by prophecy — that is, in 
 consequence of certain intimations of -the 
 prophets, who were numerous in that age of 
 spiritual gifts, marking him out as one who 
 would be an eminent minister. He adds that 
 the gift was conferred with the laying on of the 
 hands of the presbytery — that is, by the pres- 
 byters or elders in their collective capacity. 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 71 
 
 The words of the apostle are: "Neglect not 
 the gift that is in thee, which was given thee 
 by prophecy, with the laying on of the 
 
 HANDS OF THE PRESBYTERY." These WOrds 
 
 are decisive as to the parties with whom the 
 power of ordination is lodged. 
 
 Again, we turn to Acts xiii. 1-3. It appears 
 that in the church of Antioch there were 
 certain prophets and teachers whose names 
 are there recorded. They ministered to the 
 Lord and fasted ; and while thus employed, 
 it was intimated to them by the Holy Ghost 
 that they should separate Barnabas and Saul 
 for missionary work among the Gentiles. 
 Both had been preachers of the gospel pre- 
 viously, but now they were to enter on a new 
 sphere, and engage in a new department of 
 the work. It was right, therefore, that the 
 prophets and teachers should solemnly set 
 apart the two brethren to the missionary work 
 by the act of ordination. We read, accord- 
 ingly, in verse 3, that "when they had fasted 
 and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they 
 sent them away." The act of ordination was 
 here evidently not the work of one teacher, 
 
72 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHUKCH ? 
 
 but of several. A plurality took part in 
 it. 
 
 Another instance of plurality of Church 
 rulers taking part in this rite is recorded in 
 Acts vi. 6. We have there the ordination of 
 the deacons. The church at Jerusalem chose 
 seven men to attend to the necessities of the 
 poor, "whom they set before the apostles: and 
 when they had prayed, they laid their hands 
 upon them." This is particularly valuable, 
 as it proves that when it was convenient or 
 practicable for a plurality of rulers to take 
 part in the act of ordination, the apostles 
 themselves preferred that course. 
 
 Glance again at the ground over which we 
 have now passed. It was the practice of an 
 apostle, or one directly appointed by an apos- 
 tle for this specific purpose, to perform alone 
 the act of ordination. But they did not 
 ordain singly where it was possible for them 
 to associate. "Where a plurality could be had 
 conveniently, as in the case of the deacons, it 
 was common for more than one to take part 
 in the ceremony. In the absence of apostles 
 we have seen, in the case of Saul and Barna- 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 73 
 
 bas, ordination was the act of certain prophets 
 and teachers, and in the case of Timothy it 
 was the act of the presbytery. This conducts 
 us to our fourth principle — namely, that IN 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH ORDINATION WAS 
 THE ACT OF THE PRESBYTERY, of a plural- 
 ity of elders. 
 
 THE FIFTH PRINCIPLE. 
 
 The fifteenth chapter of Acts is much too 
 long to be here transcribed, but before the 
 reader proceeds farther let him open the Bible 
 and read that chapter carefully from the com- 
 mencement to the close. If he is really in 
 search of truth, and disposed to receive it in 
 its simplicity, the perusal of that chapter 
 will satisfy him that the following facts are 
 there embodied : 
 
 It appears that certain men came down 
 from Judea to Antioch, and taught the church 
 there that circumcision is necessary to salva- 
 tion. Paul and Barnabas set themselves to 
 oppose these teachers, but in vain. It was 
 then agreed that certain of the church of 
 7 
 
74 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHUECH? 
 
 Antioch, including in their number Barnabas 
 and Paul, should go up to Jerusalem and lay 
 the case before the apostles and elders. When 
 they reached Jerusalem — at that time the 
 metropolis of Christianity — the apostles and 
 elders came together to consider the question. 
 At first there was in the assembly consider- 
 able difference of opinion. Peter at last rose 
 to speak. He reminded them how God had 
 honored him in making him the instrument 
 of first preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, 
 and how it had pleased God, without respect 
 of persons, to bestow the Holy Ghost upon 
 them as well as upon Jewish believers. He 
 argues, therefore, that to make circumcision 
 necessary to salvation — to bind a yoke upon 
 the Gentiles which even the Jews were not 
 able to bear — would be to tempt God; and he 
 closes by enunciating the great truth that 
 Jews and Gentiles, both alike, obtain salva- 
 tion through the grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Barnabas and Paul followed, declar- 
 ing that by them, too, God had wrought 
 among the Gentiles miracles and wonders. 
 James next delivered his opinion. He showed 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 75 
 
 that the truth declared by Peter — namely, 
 that God had taken out of the Gentiles a 
 people for his name — was the subject of ancient 
 prophecy. He quotes from the prophet Amos 
 to show how God had promised to build the 
 tabernacle of David, which had fallen into 
 ruins, that the residue of men and the Gen- 
 tiles called by his name should seek after the 
 Lord. He ends by declaring his judgment to 
 be that the Gentiles already turned to the 
 Lord should not be troubled with any un- 
 necessary burden, but that they should be 
 directed to abstain from pollutions of idols, 
 and from fornication, and from things stran- 
 gled, and from blood. 
 
 The opinion of James was approved by the 
 assembly. The apostles and elders, with the 
 whole Church, agreed to send Judas and 
 Silas down to Antioch, with Barnabas and 
 Paul, to announce the result. The decision 
 of the meeting was embodied in letters which 
 ran in the name of the apostles, elders and 
 brethren, and were addressed to the Gentile 
 Christians in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. 
 
 The epistle charged those who taught that 
 
76 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 circumcision was necessary to salvation with 
 troubling the brethren and subverting their 
 souls; denied that they had authority from 
 the apostles and elders so to teach; mentioned 
 that Judas and Silas were empowered, along 
 with Barnabas and Paul — men who hazarded 
 their lives for the name of the Lord Jesus — 
 to declare verbally the decision of the assem- 
 bly; and stated that it seemed good to the 
 Holy Ghost and to them to impose upon the 
 Gentile converts no burden except abstinence 
 from meats offered to idols, from blood, from 
 things strangled and from fornication. 
 
 Such was the substance of the letter that 
 was carried down to Antioch by the deputies 
 from the assembly at Jerusalem. The mul- 
 titude gathered to hear it; it was delivered 
 and read, and the people rejoiced for the con- 
 solation. Judas and Silas added their exhor- 
 tations, and the brethren were confirmed in 
 the faith. 
 
 Shortly afterward, Paul, having had some 
 difference with Barnabas, chose Silas as his 
 fellow-traveler, and set out on another mis- 
 sionary journey, the object of which was to 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 77 
 
 visit the converts in every city where bu had 
 preached the word of God, and see how they 
 did. Commended by the brethren to the grace 
 of God, Paul and Silas departed from Antioch, 
 and went through Syria and Cilicia confirm- 
 ing the churches. Derbe and Lystra and 
 other cities of Asia Minor were visited on 
 this occasion ; and as they went through the 
 cities, they delivered to them the decrees for 
 to keep which were ordained of the apostles 
 and elders that were at Jerusalem. Acts 
 xvi. 4. 
 
 Every candid man must admit that this is a 
 fair representation of all the facts bearing on 
 the subject, as put before us in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth chapters of the Acts. Let it be 
 remarked that in the simple narrative the 
 following facts stand noticeably out: 1. That 
 Barnabas and Paul had a dispute about cir- 
 cumcision with certain false teachers who came 
 down from Judea. 2. This dispute was not 
 settled in the church of Antioch, where it 
 originated. 3. The matter was referred to an 
 external ecclesiastical assembly consisting of 
 the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. 4. This 
 
 V* 
 
78 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 assembly met publicly to deliberate on the 
 question. 5. They pronounced a decision. 
 6. To this decision the church of Antioch and 
 the churches of Syria and Cilicia yielded sub- 
 mission. 
 
 These facts are on the face of the narrative, 
 and cannot be denied. That they were per- 
 mitted to take place, and that a record of 
 them is inserted in the Holy Scriptures, seems 
 strange if these things did not happen for an 
 example to us. Were it enough for the church 
 of Antioch to be made certain of the mind of 
 God upon the point in dispute, Paul, who was 
 present, could have declared this with infalli- 
 ble accuracy, for he was one who not only 
 spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, 
 but who often decided matters equally im- 
 portant by a word from his lips or a stroke 
 of his pen. A single sentence from the very 
 apostle who was then at Antioch is admitted 
 by the Church of God to be decisive on any 
 point of Christian faith or Christian duty; so 
 that if an infallible decision was the only 
 thing required, one does not see why the mat- 
 ter was ever carried farther. When the case 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 79 
 
 did come up to Jerusalem, had the appeal 
 been to inspiration only, one does not see 
 what business the elders had to meet with the 
 apostles to consider the matter; surely the 
 apostles were competent to declare the mind 
 of God without the aid of uninspired men. 
 If nothing was necessary but for the apostles 
 to pronounce an infallible deliverance, why was 
 there such a thing as disputing in the assem- 
 bly, or even the semblance of deliberation, or 
 why should one apostle after another state his 
 opinion? We would suppose the deliverance 
 of a single inspired man quite sufficient. If 
 the disputing that occurred in the assembly 
 was only among the elders, the elders must 
 have been very silly to dispute about a matter 
 that inspiration was to settle, and with which 
 they, as uninspired men, could have nothing 
 to do but to listen to the voice of God; and 
 why did the apostles permit them to dispute, 
 when a word from the infallible expounders 
 of the divine will could have decided the 
 question? And when the decree went forth, 
 why was it in the name of the apostles and 
 elders that were at Jerusalem? There is one 
 
80 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 way of accounting for this satisfactorily, and 
 only one, so far as we can see. These events 
 were permitted to take place and are re- 
 corded for our guidance under all similar cir- 
 cumstances. Should any difference arise which 
 cannot be settled within the limits of the con- 
 gregation where it occurs, it is to be referred 
 for settlement to the rulers of the church in 
 their assembled capacity. If the apostles were 
 alive upon the earth to meet with the elders, 
 and by aid of their inspiration to guide them 
 to an unerring decision, and were we to refer 
 our differences to such an assembly, this would 
 be literal obedience to the example put before 
 us in the divine word. But when, in their 
 personal absence, we refer our differences to 
 the assembly of the elders, and when the 
 elders, guided by the inspired writings of the 
 apostles as contained in the Scriptures, pro- 
 nounce a deliverance on the question, and 
 when to such deliverance we yield submission 
 in the Lord, this is more than acting up to 
 the spirit, it is acting up to everything but the 
 letter, of apostolic example. 
 
 We are thus conducted to the twofold fact 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 81 
 
 that in the apostolic Church there existed 
 the privilege of referring disputed matters to 
 the decision of an assembly of living men 
 external to the congregation where such dis- 
 pute originated, and composed of the rulers 
 of the church; and that this ecclesiastical 
 assembly, in the absence of the apostles con- 
 sisting simply of the rulers of the church, has 
 a right to meet, to deliberate, to decide and 
 to demand obedience to its decisions in the 
 Lord. This twofold principle we designate 
 the privilege of appeal to the assembly of elders, 
 and the right of government exercised by them 
 in their associate capacity. 
 
 It would scarcely be necessary to say a 
 word on the presence of the brethren in the 
 assembly at Jerusalem, were it not that some 
 parties have made this fact the foundation for 
 special cavil. As they are mentioned sepa- 
 rately from the apostles and elders, it seems 
 to us clear that the "brethren" must have 
 been the non-official members of the church, 
 or, as in modern times they would be called, 
 the laity. That they were present at the meet- 
 ing, that they concurred in the decision and 
 
82 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHUKCH ? 
 
 that the letter sent down to Antioch was writ- 
 ten in their name, as well as in that of the 
 apostles and elders, are, in our opinion, unde- 
 niable facts — patent on the face of the narra- 
 tive. But we have not all the facts of the 
 case before us, except we observe, first, that 
 the original reference from Antioch was not 
 to the brethren, but to the apostles and elders 
 (verse 2) ; second, that it is not said that the 
 brethren assembled to deliberate on the ques- 
 tion, but that "the apostles and elders came 
 together for to consider of this matter" (verse 
 6) ; third, that we do not read of any of the 
 brethren speaking on the subject submitted, 
 but that they "kept silence " while others 
 spoke (verse 12) ; fourth, that the decrees are 
 not said to be ordained of the brethren, but 
 " of the apostles and elders which were at 
 Jerusalem." Acts xvi. 4. The unprejudiced 
 inquirer will observe that the private mem- 
 bers of the church, here designated the "breth- 
 ren," did not ordain the decrees, nor speak in 
 the meeting, nor assemble to deliberate, nor 
 was it to them that the appeal from Antioch 
 was brought. He will, on the other hand, 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 83 
 
 remark that they were present in the assembly, 
 that they concurred in the finding, and that, 
 as it was important to show that all the Chris- 
 tians of Jerusalem were unanimous on the 
 subject, the letter embodying the decision was 
 written in their name as well as in that of 
 the apostles and elders. From motives of 
 courtesy, and for 'the purpose of Christian 
 salutation, Silvanus and Timotheus are repre- 
 sented as uniting with Paul in his First 
 Epistle to the Thessalonians, but this does not 
 imply that Silvanus and Timotheus were in- 
 spired men, much less that they were con- 
 joined in the authorship of the letter. And, 
 in the same way, the letter addressed to the 
 Gentiles of Antioch, Syria and Cilicia was 
 the letter of the apostles and elders, the 
 name of the brethren being added to show, 
 not that they took part in the composition, 
 but that they concurred in the sentiments. 
 Persons, therefore, who desire to convince us 
 that private Christians in the apostolic Church 
 were not only present as auditors at assemblies 
 of church rulers, but also shared in the de- 
 liberations, and acted as constituent mem- 
 
84 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 bers of ecclesiastical courts, would require 
 to produce something much more explicit on 
 the subject than the 15th chapter of Acts. 
 To us it seems clear that the apostles and 
 elders assembled, deliberated and decreed; 
 the brethren were present, listened and con- 
 curred. The apostles and elders were, as we 
 would say, members of court; the brethren 
 were only auditors who gave their assent to 
 the decision of the rulers. 
 
 Our fifth principle, therefore, may be 
 summed up in these terms: the privilege 
 
 OF APPEAL TO THE ASSEMBLY OF ELDERS, 
 AND THE RIGHT OF GOVERNMENT EXERCISED 
 BY THEM IN THEIR CORPORATE CHARACTER. 
 
 THE SIXTH PKINCIPLE. 
 
 It is a distinctive feature of the apostolic 
 government that church rulers did not render 
 spiritual obedience to any temporal potentate 
 or to any ecclesiastical chief. Paul seldom 
 commences any of his Epistles without re- 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 85 
 
 minding his readers that he held his apostle- 
 ship by the will of God, not by the favor 
 of man. Take, as an example, Gal. i. 1 : 
 "Paul an apostle (not of men, neither by man, 
 but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father who 
 raised him from the dead)," etc. In the pic- 
 ture of apostolic times presented in the New 
 Testament, we can detect no instance of the 
 Church acknowledging the spiritual dominion 
 of any earthly monarch, or consenting to sur- 
 render a portion of its religious liberty for 
 any temporal advantage whatever. We find 
 no provision made in the gospel for the 
 supremacy of a Christian, much less of a 
 heathen, king in the things of God. The 
 law of Scripture is express : " Render to Caesar 
 the things that are Caesar's, and to God the 
 things that are God's." Mark xii. 17. In all 
 temporal matters the members of the apos- 
 tolic Church regarded it their duty to yield 
 obedience to the civil rulers of the country in 
 which they lived ; in all spiritual matters 
 they did homage to a higher power. In tem- 
 poral matters an apostle bowed to the laws 
 of the land as administered by the magistrate 
 8 
 
86 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 of a village ; in spiritual matters he would 
 not bow to Caesar on his throne. 
 
 It does not alter the case to say that we 
 look in vain for such an example in the 
 Scriptures, owing to the fact that in the 
 primitive age no temporal prince was made 
 a convert to Christianity, and therefore none 
 was in circumstances to dispense ecclesiastical 
 patronage and serve as the depositary of 
 spiritual power. But God is not limited by 
 want of instruments. The same grace that 
 subdued Saul of Tarsus, at a time when he 
 was breathing out slaughter against the saints 
 of the Lord, could have converted Pilate, or 
 Agrippa, or Caesar at Rome. Had the ex- 
 ample been useful, the necessary means of 
 supplying the example would not have been 
 lacking to God. The very fact that in apos- 
 tolic days God did not take some heathen 
 prince and make a Christian of him, in order 
 that he might fill the office of temporal head 
 of the Church on earth, is in itself an instruc- 
 tive fact, fraught with a moral. And let it 
 be remarked that the Scriptures make no pro- 
 vision for such an occurrence in after times. 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 87 
 
 They contain no principle authorizing the 
 prince either to claim or exercise authority in 
 ecclesiastical matters, when, in the course of 
 ages, a Christian potentate would appear. If 
 there be such a principle, it is unknown to us; 
 and it is certainly incumbent on those who 
 approve of such an arrangement, to pro- 
 duce from the Scriptures, if they can, their 
 warrant for maintaining that a Christian king 
 has a right to exercise supremacy over the 
 Church in spiritual matters. Till this is 
 done we must be excused for believing that 
 no temporal prince has a right to act as a lord 
 over the heritage of God. 
 
 Nor was supreme spiritual power lodged in 
 the hands of any office-bearer of the church, 
 however distinguished by his gilts, his suffer- 
 ings or his abundant labors. The private 
 members, indeed, had it in command to obey 
 the rulers or elders of the church, but the 
 elders, on their part, were enjoined not to act 
 as lords over God's heritage, but to be ex- 
 am pies to the flock. 1 Pet. v. 3. Even the 
 apostles did not claim to have dominion over 
 the people's faith, but only to be helpers of 
 
88 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 their joy. 2 Cor. i. 24. And among these 
 apostles it does not appear that pre-eminence 
 was vested in any. Peter is the only one for 
 whom, in later times, official supremacy is 
 ever claimed, but he never claimed it for 
 himself; he always acted with his fellow- 
 apostles as a simple preacher of the cross of 
 Christ ; he is never presented in the Scrip- 
 tures as nominating to ecclesiastical office, or 
 as exercising any peculiar control over the 
 inferior officers in the church. On one noted 
 occasion, when he exhibited some tergiversa- 
 tion, we are told of another apostle who with- 
 stood him to the face, because he was to be 
 blamed. Gal. ii. 11. The Scripture, there- 
 fore, furnishes no ground whatever for believ- 
 ing that supreme spiritual power is deposited 
 in any ecclesiastical officer any more than in 
 any temporal prince. 
 
 The Scriptures are to be our guide on this 
 as well as all other religious matters. We 
 tirm to the following passages, and find where 
 the source of all spiritual power exists: 
 
 Eph. i. 20-23: "Which he [God] wrought 
 in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, 
 
APOSTOLIC PRINCIPLES. 89 
 
 and set him at his own right hand in the 
 heavenly places, far above all principality and 
 power, and might and dominion, and every 
 name that is named, not only in this world, 
 but also in that which is to come, and hath 
 put all things under his feet, and gave him to 
 be head over all things to the Church, which is 
 his body, the fullness of him that filleth all 
 in all." 
 
 Eph. v. 23 : " For the husband is the head 
 of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the 
 Church; and he is the Saviour of the body." 
 
 Col. i. 18: "And he [Christ] is the head of 
 the body, the Church; who is the beginning, 
 the first-born from the dead; that in all 
 things he might have the pre-eminence." 
 
 The passages now quoted are taken from the 
 Holy Scriptures— the only rule of Christian 
 faith and practice. We have given them our 
 attentive consideration, and they have led us to 
 the conclusion that the sole headship of Christ 
 over the Church was the doctrine of apostolic 
 days. What the head is to the human body 
 Christ is to the Church ; and as the body can- 
 not have two heads, so the Church cannot have 
 
90 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 two heads — neither Christ and the pope, nor 
 Christ and the monarch. To ns there seems 
 no middle way in this matter. We must 
 either reject the authority of the Bible, or 
 believe what it teaches — namely, that Christ 
 is head over all things to the Church. We 
 choose the latter. The Headship of Christ 
 is the sixth principle of government, that we 
 find in operation in apostolic days. Let us 
 observe the consequence of this principle ; for, 
 as Christ is the head of the Church, the mem- 
 bers of the Church are to be subject to him; 
 and, as we have no other way of ascertaining 
 the mind of Christ except through the Scrip- 
 tures, it follows that the affairs of the Church 
 are to be managed by those officers whom the 
 Lord Jesus has entrusted with that power, 
 and are, without the interference of any exter- 
 nal authority, to be regulated according to the 
 mind of God as expressed in his word. 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 
 
 LET the reader seriously consider the evi- 
 dence submitted in the previous chapter, 
 and we think he will be satisfied that there 
 is divine authority for saying that the princi- 
 ples of which the following facts are the 
 realization were in practical operation in the 
 apostolic Church : 
 
 1. The office-bearers were chosen by the 
 people. 
 
 2. The office of bishop was identical with 
 that of elder. 
 
 3. There was a plurality of elders in each 
 church. 
 
 4. Ordination was the act of a presbytery 
 — that is, of a plurality of elders. 
 
 5. There was the privilege of appeal to 
 the assembly of elders; and the power of 
 government was exercised by them in their 
 associate capacity. 
 
 6. The only Head of the Church was the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 91 
 
92 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 The principles embodied in these six facts 
 cover the whole platform of church govern- 
 ment, each rising in importance above that 
 which precedes it, in an ascending series, from 
 popular election up to the headship of the 
 Lord. We have been conducted to them, not 
 by any process of wire-drawn logic, but by 
 receiving the Scriptures, as we think every 
 child of God should receive them, except 
 there be manifest and good reasons to the 
 contrary, in the plain, simple and natural 
 sense. The most unlettered reader, if he be 
 only unprejudiced and honest, cannot examine 
 the passages of Scripture we have specified 
 and fail to see that these six great principles 
 were all embodied in the government of the 
 apostolic Church. But whether they are em- 
 bodied in those forms of ecclesiastical gov- 
 ernment at present existing in the world is 
 another and a very important question — a 
 question which it is now our business to 
 answer. We proceed, therefore, to bring the 
 existing systems in succession to the test of 
 the apostolic standard. 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 93 
 
 PKELACY. 
 
 As already explained, prelacy is that system 
 of church government which is dispensed by 
 archbishops, bishops, priests, deans, deacons 
 and other office-bearers.* It is exemplified in 
 the Church of Rome and in the Church of 
 England, both of which are prelatic in their 
 government, the difference being that the 
 prelacy of Rome vests the ecclesiastical su- 
 premacy in the pope, while the prelacy of 
 England vests it in the reigning monarch. 
 With this exception, the two Churches, how- 
 ever widely they may differ in doctrine, are 
 in every important point of government the 
 same. As many may be disposed to consider 
 the prelacy of the Protestant Church much less 
 objectionable than the prelacy of Rome, and 
 as we have neither necessity nor desire to 
 take any unfair advantage in argument, we 
 prefer to bring the prelacy of Protestantism 
 into comparison with the apostolic standard. 
 
 The fountain of jurisdiction in the Church 
 of England is the monarch for the time being, 
 who inherits the throne by hereditary descent, 
 * See note on page 11. 
 
94 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH ? 
 
 and who, irrespective of all character, is, by act 
 of Parliament, the only supreme head of the 
 Church of England and Ireland. [37 Henry 
 VIII., chap. 17.] No person can be received 
 into the ministry of that Church till he sub- 
 scribe this article: "That the king's majesty, 
 under God, is the only supreme governor of this 
 realm, and of all other his highness' dominions 
 and countries, as well in all spiritual or eccle- 
 siastical things or causes as temporal." [Canon 
 36.] The appointment of all the archbish- 
 ops and bishops is vested in the crown, which 
 is guided in the selection by the political ad- 
 ministration of the day — a body composed of 
 every hue of religious profession, and only 
 kept in its place by the majority of votes it 
 can command in Parliament. The highest 
 ecclesiastical office-bearers under the crown 
 are the archbishops, of whom there are two 
 in England — the archbishops of Canterbury 
 and York — and two in Ireland — the arch- 
 bishops of Armagh and Dublin.* Each of 
 these has under him a number of suffragan 
 
 * Since the publication of this book, the Irish Epis- 
 copal Church has been disestablished. P. 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 95 
 
 bishops, and each bishop lias under his care 
 the inferior clergy of his diocese, who preach 
 and dispense the ordinances of religion to such 
 inhabitants of their parish as are pleased to 
 receive them. The parish clergy are in some 
 instances appointed by the crown, in others 
 by the bishop, in others by a lay patron, and 
 sometimes in a mode still more objectionable. 
 
 Such is prelacy as presented in the Protest- 
 ant Establishment of England. Let us com- 
 pare it with the system of government which 
 we have already ascertained to exist in the 
 apostolic Church. 
 
 In the apostolic Church the office-bearers 
 were chosen by the people, but in the Church 
 of England archbishops are chosen by the 
 crown, and the subordinate clergy are ap- 
 pointed to their charges either by the diocesan 
 or by some landed proprietor, or by some 
 civil corporation. The people of the apostolic 
 Church exercised the privilege of electing an 
 apostle ; the people in the Church of England 
 have not power to elect a curate. 
 
 In the apostolic Church the office of bishop 
 and elder was identical ; the elders of Ephe- 
 
96 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 sus were the bishops of the flock ; but in the 
 English Church Establishment it is very dif- 
 ferent. The apostolic elder, being a teacher 
 and ruler of a congregation, resembles more 
 closely the parish clergyman than any other 
 office-bearer in the Church of England. But 
 it is very evident that in that church a parish 
 clergyman holds a position widely different 
 from a bishop. The rector wields the juris- 
 diction of a parish, but the bishop governs a 
 diocese, that usually includes a whole multi- 
 tude of parishes. The one presides over a 
 single congregation, the other over many con- 
 gregations. The one exercises authority over 
 the laity, but a Church of England bishop is 
 the ruler of a band of clergy. If, then, the 
 parish clergyman correspond to the presbyter 
 or elder of apostolic times, it is very clear 
 that in the Establishment the bishop and 
 elder are not identical in office. In the Es- 
 tablished Church every elder is subject to his 
 bishop, but in the apostolic Church every 
 elder was a bishop himself. 
 
 In the Church of England each congrega- 
 tion is under the care of one presbyter. When 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 97 
 
 a second is called in, he is a mere curate in 
 the employment of another, and void of all 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It is not very com- 
 mon, and certainly not essential to the system, 
 to have more than one presbyter or elder in 
 one church ; whereas we have seen that in 
 each church in apostolic times there was a 
 plurality of elders. 
 
 In the Church of England ordination is an 
 act exclusively performed by a prelate; he 
 may ask others to unite with him, but it is 
 his presence, not theirs, that is essential to the 
 act; whereas in the apostolic Church it was 
 the practice to ordain men to the office of the 
 ministry with the laying on of the hands of 
 the presbytery. 
 
 In the Church of England, no matter what 
 ecclesiastical grievance may exist, there is no 
 power of appeal except to the courts of law, 
 or the queen's privy council, or some such 
 tribunal. The practice is unknown in the de- 
 nomination of bringing any matter for con- 
 sideration before the assembly of elders for 
 them to decide upon in accordance with the 
 apostles' word. But this, as we have seen, 
 
 9 
 
98 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 was the mode in which affairs were managed 
 in the apostolic Church. 
 
 In our Protestant Establishment the mon- 
 arch is, by act of Parliament, head of the 
 Church, and to the king or queen, as the case 
 may be, the 37th Article informs us that "the 
 chief government of all estates of the realm, 
 whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, in all 
 causes, doth appertain;" whereas in apostolic 
 times the Church had no head but Jesus 
 Christ.* 
 
 We have thus examined and compared the 
 
 * The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United 
 States exhibits some modifications in the particulars 
 specified in the text. Each congregation chooses its ves- 
 trymen and wardens, and these officers elect the rector of 
 the church. The annual and general conventions have 
 a power of legislation in reference to the affairs of the 
 sect at large. It has not yet any archbishops, nor in the 
 dioceses generally deans or archdeacons, though in 
 Illinois, we believe, an attempt has been made to de- 
 velop these officers. In other respects the statements 
 of the text will apply to the denomination in this country 
 as well as to the English Establishment. Though its alle- 
 giance to the head of the Anglican Church has been dis- 
 solved, it retains the peculiarities by which that Church 
 is distinguished from all other Protestant denominations, 
 and it looks up to it as its mother Church. P. 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 99 
 
 two Churches as closely and candidly as it is 
 possible for us to do, and we feel ourselves 
 forced to the conclusion that, of the six great 
 principles of ecclesiastical government that 
 met in the apostolic Church, there is not one 
 embodied in the prelacy of the Church of 
 England. We infer, therefore, that, while that 
 Church may be entitled to great respect as a 
 human system, maintained by act of Parlia- 
 ment, and numbering in its ranks many es- 
 timable people, there is no ground whatever 
 for regarding it, in point of government, as 
 an apostolic Church. At the peril of excom- 
 munication, we feel bound to declare our con- 
 viction that the government of the Church of 
 England is repugnant to the word of God.* 
 
 * No. VII. of the Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiasti- 
 cal, agreed upon with the king's license in 1603, and re- 
 published by the Prayer-Book and Homily Society 
 (1852), is as follows: "Whosoever shall hereafter affirm 
 that the government of the Church of England under 
 his Majesty by archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons 
 and the rest that bear office in the same is anti-Christian 
 or repugnant to the word of God, let him be excom- 
 municated ipso facto, and so continue till he repent and 
 publicly revoke such his wicked errors." 
 
100 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 INDEPENDENCY AND CONGKEGATION- 
 ALISM. 
 
 It is difficult to ascertain the particulars of 
 ecclesiastical order approved by Independents, 
 inasmuch as we are not aware that they have 
 embodied their views of what the Scriptures 
 teach on the subject in any common formula, 
 and as every congregation, standing apart 
 from every other, may differ sometimes widely 
 on important points. We are, therefore, left 
 to discover their views of church polity from 
 the general practices known to exist among 
 them, and from the principles advocated by 
 their most eminent writers. These, however, 
 are sufficiently known to enable us to compare 
 the Independent system of church govern- 
 ment with the apostolic standard. 
 
 The principle of popular election existed, 
 as we have seen, in the primitive Church, and 
 had the sanction of the apostles of the Lord. 
 Among the Independents this principle is 
 preserved in its integrity; with them every 
 ecclesiastical office-bearer is chosen by the 
 people. 
 
 In the apostolic Church the office of bishop 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 101 
 
 and elder was identical ; the bishop did not 
 exercise any authority over the elder; on the 
 contrary, every bishop was an elder, and every 
 elder a bishop. So it is with Independents. 
 Every one of their pastors fills the office of 
 bishop and elder, and none of them claims 
 authority over others. With them a bishop 
 and elder are only different names for the 
 same office-bearers, as it was in apostolic 
 days. 
 
 Ve have seen how, in apostolic times, there 
 was a plurality of elders in each church. 
 Here the Independent system fails. On the 
 principles of that theory of church govern- 
 ment, it is scarcely possible to have a plurality 
 of elders, and in practice it rarely, if ever, 
 occurs. Among them there is only one minis- 
 ter, or bishop, or elder, in each congregation. 
 Practically, their system admits only of one 
 elder to each church. If an apostle were 
 writing an epistle to an Independent church, 
 he would never think of addressing it to the 
 bishops, as well as to the deacons, for the 
 simple reason that with them there is usually 
 but one bishop to one church ; nor could an 
 
102 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHUKCH? 
 
 apostle ever send for the elders of an Inde- 
 pendent church, as Paul sent for the elders 
 of Ephesus, for the plain reason that in an 
 Independent church there is usually but one 
 elder. A single pastor, with deacons under 
 him, is the prominent feature that the Inde- 
 pendent system everywhere presents — an ar- 
 rangement than which none can be more 
 opposed to the plurality of elders that existed 
 in each congregation in primitive times. Some 
 Independents attempt to palliate their depart- 
 ure from apostolic precedent by saying that a 
 plurality of elders is desirable, but their 
 churches are not able to support them. Does 
 it never strike our esteemed brethren that 
 there must be some remarkable disparity 
 between the apostolic system and theirs, when 
 the richest of their churches now cannot 
 afford to possess what was possessed by the 
 very poorest churches in the days of the 
 apostles? It is the word of God that says of 
 Paul and Barnabas, "They ordained elders 
 in every church." 
 
 The office-bearers of the apostolic Church 
 were set apart to the discharge of their pecu- 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 103 
 
 liar duties with the laying on of the hands of 
 the presbytery. Among Independents, how- 
 ever, ordination of any sort is not essential ; fre- 
 quently it is counted unnecessary. Instances 
 are known of persons acting as pastors of 
 churches for a lifetime, who were never in- 
 ducted to office with the imposition of hands 
 and prayer. Ordination is not required by 
 the system. With them it is a mere matter 
 of taste, left in each case to the individual 
 choice. If the newly-elected pastor choose to 
 have himself ordained, it can only be done in a 
 way inconsistent with Independent principles. 
 The congregation being destitute of a plu- 
 rality of elders, his ordination can only come 
 from the people, who have no scriptural right 
 to confer it, or from the neighboring pastors. 
 But who does not see that the latter practice 
 is entirely at variance with the foundation 
 principles of Independency, namely — that each 
 congregation has iciihin itself complete ma- 
 terials for government? So much is this felt 
 to be the case that, while some ask the assist- 
 ance of the pastors of the district on such 
 occasions, those who choose to carry out their 
 
104 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 Congregationalist principle with a little more 
 consistency make light of ordination, think it 
 unnecessary and prefer to go without it.* 
 
 * The Congregationalism of the United States is found- 
 ed on these principles. It invests all ecclesiastical 
 power (under Christ) in the membership of each local 
 church as an independent body. It recognizes, however, 
 a fellowship between these independent churches which 
 invests each with the right and duty of advice. In that 
 respect it differs from Independency, which ignores any 
 check even of advice upon the action of particular con- 
 gregations. Ordination is not essential in Congregation- 
 alism. It is held that there is no command for its con- 
 tinuance, though it has a pleasant fitness which keeps 
 up the practice of it. When performed, it is nothing but 
 the solemn installation of a functionary, previously ap- 
 pointed, in the place to which he has been chosen — the 
 consummation of the act of election, and it means pre- 
 cisely the same, whether applied to pastor, deacons, 
 clerk, treasurer or committees. Each congregation has 
 in itself the power to ordain, but it is a matter of comity 
 to invite neighboring churches, by their representatives, 
 pastoral and lay, to pronounce the benediction upon the 
 consummation of the pastoral union. The pastor of a 
 particular congregation, as well as its deacons, clerk and 
 treasurer, should be selected from its own membership. 
 When a man ceases to be the pastor of a church, he falls 
 back to the position of a private member in it. If lie 
 takes his membership to another congregation, and is 
 elected pastor there, he must be again ordained, though all 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 105 
 
 In the apostolic Church there was the priv- 
 ilege of appeal to the assembly of elders. 
 Among the Independents nothing of this 
 kind can exist. The distinctive principle of 
 their system precludes all appeal. The de- 
 cision of the pastor and deacons and people, 
 assembled in a church-meeting, is final in 
 every case. No matter how partial or unjust 
 their decision is felt to be, there is no power 
 of bringing the sentence under review of a 
 less prejudiced and more enlightened tribunal. 
 The judgment of the Church may be in strict 
 accordance with justice, or it may be the off- 
 spring of prejudice or malevolence in a few of 
 the leaders of the meeting, masked, of course, 
 under zeal for purity of communion and for 
 the cause of religion; but no matter how 
 superficial the investigation or how deep the 
 wrong, the system deprives the injured man 
 
 ordinations after the first are usually styled installations. 
 (See Dexter's "Congregationalism;" especially pp. 1, 2, 
 and 136-146.) These statements show that what is said 
 in the text in reference to ordination among English 
 Independents applies substantially to the Congregational 
 theory of this country. The other features of Independ- 
 ency as described above also belong to it. P. 
 
106 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 of the privilege of appeal, and clothes the 
 perpetrators with irresponsible power. By- 
 denying and repudiating all association, it 
 enables the rulers to be, if they please, the 
 tyrants of the Church, and strips the injured 
 of the possibility of redress. " Independency/' 
 says Dr. Wardlaw, " is the competency of every 
 distinct Church to manage, without appeal, its 
 own affairs."* This is an ingenious mode of 
 disguising the most repulsive feature of the 
 system. Very few would deny that a church 
 is competent to manage its own affairs in such 
 a way as to obviate the necessity of appeal; 
 but what we assert is that when the Church 
 lacks the necessary wisdom and discretion to 
 do so, appeal among Independents is not per- 
 mitted, the injured is deprived of redress, and 
 power, for which the possessor is irresponsible 
 to man, degenerates into tyranny when it is 
 unwisely exercised, and there is nothing to 
 keep it in check. The case of Antioch shows 
 that when a difference arose in the primitive 
 Church, there was a right of referring the 
 
 * Dr. Wardlaw's " Congregational Independency ;" p. 
 232, Glasgow, 1848. 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 107 
 
 matter to the assembly of elders, who, under 
 the guidance of the apostles, settled the busi- 
 ness. Elders might still meet, and the written 
 word of the apostles is accessible to all, and a 
 decision pronounced by parties removed from 
 the scene of controversy, untainted by local 
 prejudices, and standing far away from the 
 partisanship of the leaders, might go far now, 
 as in ancient days, to calm dissensions, should 
 they unfortunately arise. But Independents, 
 in this respect, repudiate the apostolic exam- 
 ple. Their principle is to refuse all recogni- 
 tion of external authority, to make the de- 
 cision of the church-meeting final in every 
 case, and to deny to them who are aggrieved 
 the privilege of appeal.* 
 
 * The Baptists are independent or congregational in 
 their form of government. Dr. Wayland, in his " Notes 
 on the Principles and Practices of the Baptist Churches/' 
 says (p. 177) : "The Baptists have ever believed in the 
 entire and absolute independency of the churches. By 
 this we mean that every church of Christ — that is, every 
 company of believers united together according to the 
 laws of Christ — is perfectly capable of self-government, 
 and that, therefore, no one acknowledges any higher 
 authority under Christ than itself; that with the church 
 all ecclesiastical action commences, and with it termi- 
 
108 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 The Headship of Christ was a principle of 
 apostolic times. Independents, we are happy 
 to say, acknowledge this principle in all its 
 integrity. 
 
 The result of our comparison is, that there 
 are three principles of the apostolic Church 
 that we find fully acknowledged and acted upon 
 among our Independent brethren — namely, 
 popular election, the identity of presbyter 
 and bishop, and the Headship of Christ over 
 the Church. But there are three apostolic 
 
 nates; and hence, that the ecclesiastical relations proper 
 of every member are limited to the church to which he 
 belongs." In striking inconsistency with this, however, 
 as to ordination, which is certainly a very important 
 part of the "self-government" of each Church, Dr. 
 Wayland says (p. 114) : "A single church does not or- 
 dain. It calls a council, generally representing the 
 churches in the vicinity, who are present by their 
 ministers and such private brethren as they may select." 
 The associations and councils of the Baptists and Congre- 
 gationalists are practical departures from the fundamental 
 principle of their form of government, and a half-way 
 adoption, for general church work, of some of the 
 features of Presbyterianism. No appeal, however, lies 
 to the associations from individual churches, nor have 
 they, in reference to particular church questions, the 
 right to do anything more than advise. P. , 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 109 
 
 principles that we fail to find in their system — 
 namely, the plurality of elders in each church, 
 ordination with the laying on of the hands 
 of the presbytery, and the privilege of appeal. 
 We conclude, therefore, that, while the Inde- 
 pendent system of government advances to 
 the pattern of primitive times much more 
 closely than that which exists in the churches 
 of England and Rome, still, it is not the sys- 
 tem entitled to plead the precedent of the 
 apostolic Church. 
 
 PRESBYTEKY. 
 
 It only now remains that we compare the 
 Presbyterian system with the standard of the 
 law and of the testimony. The term Presby- 
 terian is derived from the word presbytery, be- 
 cause the leading characteristic of this form of 
 church government is, that it entrusts the 
 duty of ruling the Church to the presbytery 
 — that is, to the presbyters or elders of the 
 Church in their assembled capacity. But let 
 us bring it, as well as the others, to the scrip- 
 tural standard. 
 10 
 
110 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 In the apostolic Church we have mentioned 
 ^frequently already that popular election was 
 an admitted principle. It is so with Pres- 
 byterians. In all Presbyterian churches 
 throughout Britain and America, with the 
 single exception of the Established Church 
 of Scotland, the members of each congrega- 
 tion invariably elect their own office-bearers. 
 The privilege has been abused sometimes, as 
 what good thing has not been abused by the 
 sin and infatuation of man? But it is a 
 scriptural privilege that the apostolic Church 
 bequeaths us, and Presbyterians have often 
 shown that they count it more precious than 
 gold. 
 
 In the primitive age the office of bishop 
 and elder was identical. An elder was not 
 inferior, in point of official standing, to a 
 bishop, nor a bishop to an elder. It is so in 
 the Presbyterian Church. Every elder is a 
 bishop or overseer of the flock, and every 
 bishop is an elder, one whose office is to rule in 
 the house of God. There are two departments 
 in the office of the elder — that of teaching, and 
 that of ruling; but the office itself is one. 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. Ill 
 
 There was a plurality of elders or bishops 
 in each congregation of the apostolic Church. 
 Such is the practice in every Presbyterian 
 church at the present day. There is in each 
 of their congregations a number of persons 
 ordained to the office of the eldership, one of 
 whom at least gives himself to the work of 
 the ministry in its various departments, par- 
 ticularly that of public instruction, while the 
 others give their principal attention to ruling 
 in the Church of God. Teaching and ruling, 
 as we have already stated, are different de- 
 partments of the same office; and while there 
 can be no doubt that those appointed to the 
 office have, in the abstract, a right to fill both 
 departments, yet, in practice, it is found more 
 convenient and beneficial for the people that 
 each elder give most of his attention to that 
 department whose duties he is best qualified 
 to discharge. All elders, being bishops, would 
 have an equal right, according to the Scrip- 
 tures, to preach, baptize, administer the Lord's 
 Supper and ordain ; but these duties it is 
 arranged to devolve on one of the elders, 
 called by distinction the minister, who is 
 
112 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 especially trained to his work, and is, by 
 general consent, admitted to possess most gifts 
 and attainments, and who, in consequence, is 
 the best qualified to make these ordinances 
 edifying to the Church; while the majority of 
 the elders only rule, visit the sick, superintend 
 Sabbath-schools, conduct prayer-meetings, and 
 make themselves useful in other ways.* 
 
 Presbyterians, therefore, maintain a plural- 
 ity of elders in every church; and as it was 
 in apostolic days, it is customary among them, 
 for elders to rule who do not labor in word 
 and doctrine. Any unprejudiced person may 
 see, from 1 Tim. v. 17, that the office of the 
 eldership divided itself into two great de- 
 partments of duty in primitive times, even as 
 at present. "Let the elders that rule well be 
 counted worthy of double honor, especially 
 they who labor in word and doctrine." Dr. 
 King's comment on this text must, for sense 
 and truthfulness, commend itself to every in- 
 telligent man: "The word," he says, "could 
 suggest to an unbiased reader only one 
 meaning, that all elders who rule well are 
 
 * And this distinction in practice is the constitutional 
 law of the Presbyterian Church. P. 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 113 
 
 worthy of abundant honor, but especially 
 those of their number who, besides ruling 
 well, also labor in word and doctrine. Of 
 course, the passage so interpreted, bears that, 
 of the elders who rule well, only some labor 
 in word and doctrine — that is, there are ruling 
 elders, and among these teaching elders, as 
 we have at the present day." * 
 
 We are tempted thus to insert the true ex- 
 position of this celebrated passage, of which 
 we have been often charged by our opponents 
 as giving interpretations the most grotesque 
 and extravagant. But the reader is requested 
 to observe that the point which we have par- 
 ticularly in view at present is that the Pres- 
 byterian Church, like the apostolic Church, 
 has in every congregation a plurality of 
 elders. 
 
 Office-bearers were set apart to their dis- ' 
 
 tinct spheres of duty in the apostolic Church 
 
 with the laying on of the hands of the 
 
 presbytery. The Presbyterian Church, in its 
 
 several branches, is the only one known to us 
 
 * Exposition and Defence, p. 115. 
 10* 
 
114 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 that carries this scriptural principle invariably 
 into practice. 
 
 In the apostolic Church there was recog- 
 nized the privilege of appeal and the right of 
 government. This privilege is not only ad- 
 mitted, but it is one of the most distinguish- 
 ing principles of Presbyterianism. Should any 
 difference arise in a congregation, the mem- 
 bers are competent to settle the matter with- 
 out appeal, if they please; but should this 
 fail, it is equally competent for them to refer 
 the whole matter, either for advice or decision, 
 to the assembly of elders met in presbytery. 
 The highest ecclesiastical court known to the 
 system is the Presbytery, the Synod being the 
 name usually given to the presbytery of a 
 province, and the General Assembly being the 
 name that convenience has attached to the 
 ^presbytery of a nation. The General Assem- 
 bly has jurisdiction over a synod only because 
 it is a larger presbytery.* 
 
 *"The Presbyterian doctrine on this subject is that 
 the Church is one in such a sense that a smaller part is 
 subject to a larger, and the larger to the whole." The 
 elders are the representatives, in the session, of the peo- 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 115 
 
 In the apostolic Church the Lord Jesus 
 alone was Kiug and Head. This is a truth ac- 
 
 ple of their particular Church. If all Christians could 
 be united in one congregation, nothing further would be 
 necessary. But as they increase in number, and extend 
 territorially, they must have separate organizations ; and 
 their unity can be exhibited and kept up only by repre- 
 sentation in those organizations, each lower fraction 
 being represented in the higher, and the highest being 
 the bond of unity of all. And as a historical Presby- 
 terian fact, the highest representative body in each 
 country, above the sessions, was first formed as the unit 
 and representative of the whole Church, and out of 
 itself, as the numerical and territorial necessity grew up, 
 it constituted the subordinate organizations. This was 
 the case in Scotland, Ireland and America. The General 
 Assembly is the largest or General Presbytery ; and 
 representation is an essential to it. 
 
 As against independency or Congregationalism, on 
 the one hand, and prelacy on the other, with all the 
 mixtures of the two, the grand distinguishing features 
 of Presbyterianism are the parity of its ministry and 
 representation. Kepresentation again assumes a two- 
 fold aspect: 1. In the administration of the government 
 and discipline of each particular church, not by the 
 brethren at large, but by their representatives, elders 
 elected by them and properly ordained ; and 2. The 
 representation of these particular congregations through 
 their elders, teaching and ruling, in an ascending grade 
 of church courts, the lower being subject to the higher, 
 
116 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 knowledged by all Presbyterians, and practi- 
 cally acted upon by all, except a very few, 
 who, owing to their connection with the State, 
 have been charged with a virtual departure 
 from the principle. All Presbyterian churches 
 rank among their most cherished, as well as 
 distinctive, principles, that Christ alone is 
 King and Head of his Church. As a denomi- 
 nation, Presbyterians have ever held that the 
 Church, independent of the civil rulers, has 
 supreme jurisdiction in all spiritual matters, 
 and that its office-bearers are bound to exer- 
 cise that jurisdiction in conformity to the 
 mind of Christ, as expressed in his word. 
 The doctrine of the supreme Headship of 
 Jesus Christ over his Church is one to which 
 Presbyterians have always been warm in their 
 attachment. 
 
 We find, then, on minute and patient ex- 
 amination, that the six main principles of 
 government that were, by inspired men, es- 
 tablished in the apostolic Church, are all 
 recognized and carried out among Presbyter- 
 
 to whom the government of the Church in its more 
 extended territorial capacity is committed. P. 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 117 
 
 ians. We know no other denomination in the 
 world of whose form of ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment the same statement could be made with- 
 out departure from the truth. 
 
 THE EESULT. 
 
 Here, then, is the result of our investiga- 
 tions and comparisons. The word of God con- 
 tains six great, well-defined principles of gov- 
 ernment that were embodied in that Church 
 which was planted and organized by the 
 inspired apostles of the Lord. All existing 
 modern Churches claim to be apostolic, and, 
 with the exception of the Greek and Roman 
 Churches, profess to adopt the Scriptures as 
 the sole rule of faith and practice. But on 
 comparing the prelacy of the Church of 
 England with the standard of the divine 
 word, it is found that in that Church not one 
 of the apostolic principles of government is 
 recognized or embodied.* Among the inde- 
 
 * In reference to American Episcopacy this remark 
 must be modified according to the statements on p. 47. 
 
 P. 
 
118 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 pendents three of the apostolic principles are 
 exemplified in practice ; the remaining three 
 are nowhere to be found. Among Presbyter- 
 ians these six principles are all acknowledged, 
 and every one of them is a main feature of 
 the Presbyterian system. We now remind the 
 reader of the axiom with which we entered 
 on the investigation: The modem Church 
 which embodies in its government most apostolic 
 principles comes nearest in its government to 
 the apostolic Church. We apply this axiom to 
 the settlement of the case. Our conclusion is 
 that, while the prelacy of Rome and England 
 is in direct opposition to the form of ecclesiasti- 
 cal government that was sanctioned by inspired 
 men, and while independency approaches much 
 more nearly, but still falls short of, the primi- 
 tive model, the Presbyterian is, in point 
 of government, the only apostolic 
 Church. 
 
 We are, indeed, very far from maintaining 
 that any Church on earth is in everything an 
 exact model of the pattern presented in the 
 primitive age. It requires very little thought 
 to see that the apostolic Church of the Scrip- 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 119 
 
 tures is altogether unique — one that in all its 
 parts is never to be realized in this world 
 again. There were in it apostles, prophets and 
 apostolic delegates, all vested with extraordi- 
 nary powers which have been handed down 
 to no successors. It was quite common for the 
 early preachers to work miracles in confirma- 
 tion of their doctrine, and confer the Holy 
 Ghost by the laying on of their hands. Some- 
 times in the same congregation there were 
 several gifted brethren who could look into 
 the future with prophetic eye and declare in- 
 fallibly the mind of God. There were no 
 public buildings erected for the celebration of 
 Christian worship during all the apostolic 
 age; and public teachers, instead of confining 
 the labors of a life to one little district in the 
 country, went everywhere preaching the word. 
 These are matters as to which no sect that we 
 know of has been able yet to copy the apos- 
 tolic Church, or is ever very likely to do so. 
 
 It is not uncommon to hear people speak 
 of the advantages that accrue to the Presby- 
 terian system from the admittance of the lay 
 element into the church courts. This must 
 
120 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 be a misunderstanding altogether. None but 
 elders — teaching and ruling elders — are com- 
 petent to sit in any Presbyterian church court, 
 from the session of a congregation up to the 
 General Assembly; and as we have already : 
 seen, all elders are equal in point of official 
 standing, for though their departments of 
 duty are in some respects different, yet the 
 office is one and the same. No elder of any 
 kind is a layman, but an ecclesiastical office- 
 bearer, ordained with the laying on of the 
 hands of the presbytery, and appointed to the 
 oversight of the flock and to the discharge of 
 spiritual duties. The notion is only plausible 
 from the fact that most elders are engaged in 
 secular pursuits. But it should be remembered 
 that all ministers were so engaged at the first. 
 Even an apostle lived by his trade, as he 
 repeatedly informs us (Acts xx. 34; xviii. 3; 
 1 Cor. iv. 12; 1 Thess. ii. 9; 2 Thess. iii. 8); 
 and it was part of Paul's charge to the 
 bishops of Ephesus, "that so laboring they 
 ought to support the weak." Acts xx. 35. If 
 the pursuit of secular employment proves our 
 elders to be laymen, then the bishops of 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 121 
 
 Ephesus were laymen, and the apostle of the 
 Gentiles was a layman too. 
 
 It is, however, only candid to say that such 
 a notion of ecclesiastical order as this term 
 betrays has received countenance from the 
 disparity that in the course of time has risen 
 between the elders who teach and the elders 
 who rule. This disparity is not the result of 
 any ecclesiastical enactment, but was at the 
 beginning, and still is, the effect mainly of a 
 difference of gifts. The most gifted of the 
 elders was in the beginning set to preach, and 
 what at first was only a difference of gifts has 
 grown in the progress of time to wear the ap- 
 pearance of a difference in rank. One is here 
 reminded of the truthful remark of Dr. Camp- 
 bell : " Power has a sort of attractive force 
 which gives it a tendency to accumulate, inso- 
 much that what in the beginning is a distinc- 
 tion barely perceptible grows in process of 
 time a most remarkable disparity." 
 
 The disparity existing between teaching and 
 
 ruling elders among Presbyterians, instead of 
 
 being defended, is very much to be lamented, 
 
 and ought as much as possible to be removed. 
 
 11 
 
122 WHICH IS THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH? 
 
 This is to be done, however, not by lowering 
 the teaching elder, but by elevating the 
 ruling elder, and appointing to office those 
 only who are distinguished from the people 
 by more than a common measure of graces 
 and gifts, who are aware of the responsibili- 
 ties of the eldership, and who are determined, 
 for the Lord's sake, to the best of their ability 
 to discharge its duties. Besides, the office of 
 the deacon, existing at present only in some 
 congregations, should be revived in every 
 church where elders can manage temporal 
 matters only by neglecting the spiritual con- 
 cerns peculiarly their own. These and other 
 defects can be remedied when once they are 
 seen to be defects, for it is one among the 
 many recommendations of the Presbyterian 
 Church polity that it possesses within itself 
 a purifying and reforming power by which, 
 while always preserving the scriptural and 
 essential principles of the system, it can alter 
 any arrangement that experience has proved 
 in its operation not to be productive of good. 
 We do not, then, assert that the Presbyter- 
 ian Church is in everything an exact copy of 
 
APPLICATION OF THE TEST. 123 
 
 the apostolic Church. There are some things 
 found in the one that must be for ever want- 
 ing in the other; and, conversely, there are 
 some things wanting in the one that are found 
 in the other. But in doctrine they are exactly 
 the same; in worship they are exactly the 
 same; in government all the main principles 
 of the one are found in the other. There is 
 no other Church on earth of which the same 
 statements can be made in truth. We regard 
 it, therefore, as put beyond all reasonable 
 doubt that of all the Churches now existing 
 in the world, the Presbyterian Church comes 
 nearest to the model of apostolic times. That 
 such is the fact every man who gives to the 
 evidence here submitted that careful and un- 
 prejudiced consideration to which it is en- 
 titled must, as we think, be convinced. 
 
Jc