Presbyterianism
The idea behind Presbyterianism rests comfortably on
top of the biblical description of covenant Theology. We will utilize this
section of Semper Reformanda to post pertinent historical documents on the
subject of Presbyterian doctrine and theology.
WHAT IS
PRESBYTERIANISM?
By Charles Hodge
BRETHREN:—We are
assembled this evening as a Presbyterian Historical Society. It has
occurred to me that it would not be inappropriate to discuss the
question, What is Presbyterianism? You will not expect from me an
oration. My object is neither conviction nor persuasion; but
exposition. I propose to occupy the hour devoted to this address in an
attempt to unfold the principles of that system of Church polity which
we, as Presbyterians, hold to be laid down in the word of God. Setting
aside Erastianism, which teaches that the Church is only one form of
the State; and Quakerism, which does not provide for the external
organization of the Church, there are only four radically different
theories on the subject of Church Polity.
1. The Popish theory,
which assumes that Christ, the Apostles and believers, constituted the
Church while our Saviour was on earth, and this organization was
designed to be perpetual. After the ascension of our Lord, Peter
became his Vicar, and took his place as the visible head of the
Church. This primacy of Peter, as the universal Bishop, is continued
in his successors, the Bishops of Rome; and the apostleship is
perpetuated in the order of Prelates. As in the Primitive Church, no
one could be an apostle who was not subject to Christ, so now no one
can be a Prelate who is not subject to the Pope. And as then no one
could be a Christian who was not subject to Christ and the apostles,
so now no one can be a Christian who is not subject to the Pope and
the Prelates. This is the Romish theory of the Church. A Vicar of
Christ, a perpetual College of apostles, and the people subject to
their infallible control.
2. 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 theory simply teaches that there was originally a
three-fold order in the ministry, and that there should be now. But it
does not affirm that mode of organization to be essential.
3. The Independent or
Congregational theory includes two principles; first, that the
governing and executive power in the Church is in the brotherhood; and
secondly, that the Church organization is complete in each worshipping
assembly, which is independent of every other.
4. The fourth theory is
the Presbyterian, which it is our present business to attempt to
unfold. The three great negations of Presbyterianism that is, the
three great errors which it denies are 1. That all church power vests
in the clergy. 2. That the apostolic office is perpetual. 3. That each
individual Christian congregation is independent. The affirmative
statement of these principles is 1. That the people have a right to a
substantive part in the government of the Church. 2. That presbyters,
who minister in word and doctrine, are the highest permanent officers
of the Church, and all belong to the same order. 3. That the outward
and visible Church is, or should be, one, in the sense that a smaller
part is subject to a larger, and a larger to the whole. It is not
holding one of these principles that makes a man a Presbyterian, but
his holding them all.
I. The first of these
principles relates to the power and rights of the people. As to the
nature of Church power, it is to be remembered that the Church is a
theocracy. Jesus Christ is its head. All power is derived from him.
His word is our written constitution. All Church power is, therefore,
properly ministerial and administrative. Everything is to be done in
the name of Christ, and in accordance with his directions. The Church,
however, is a self-governing society, distinct from the State, having
its officers and laws, and, therefore, an administrative government
of its own. The power of the Church relates, 1. To matters of
doctrine. She has the right to set forth a public declaration of the
truths which she believes, and which are to be acknowledged by all
who enter her communion. That is, she has the right to frame creeds
or confessions of faith, as her testimony for the truth, and her
protest against error. And as she has been commissioned to teach all
nations, she has the right of selecting teachers, of judging of their
fitness, of ordaining and sending them forth into the field, and of
recalling and deposing them when unfaithful. 2. The Church has power
to set down rules for the ordering of public worship. 3. She has power
to make rules for her own government; such as every Church has in its
Book of Discipline, Constitution, or Canons, &c. 4. She has power to
receive into fellowship, and to exclude the unworthy from her own
communion.
Now, the question is,
Where does this power vest? Does it, as Romanists and Prelatists
affirm, belong exclusively to the clergy? Have they the right to
determine for the Church what she is to believe, what she is to
profess, what she is to do, and whom she is to receive as members, and
whom she is to reject? Or does this power vest in the Church—itself
that is, in the whole body of the faithful? This, it will be
perceived, is a radical question—one which touches the essence of
things, and determines the destiny of men. If all Church power vests
in the clergy, then the people are practically bound to passive
obedience in all matters of faith and practice; for all right of
private judgment is then denied. If it vests in the whole Church, then
the people have a right to a substantive part in the decision of all
questions relating to doctrine, worship, order, and discipline. The
public assertion of this right of the people, at the time of the
Reformation, roused all Europe. It was an apocalyptic trumpet, i.e. a
trumpet of revelation, tuba per sepulchra sonans, calling dead
souls to life; awakening them to the consciousness of power and of
right; of power conveying right, and imposing the obligation to assert
and exercise it. This was the end of Church tyranny in all truly
Protestant countries. It was the end of the theory that the people
were bound to passive submission in matters of faith and practice. It
was deliverance to the captive, the opening of the prison to those who
were bound; the introduction of the people of God into the liberty
wherewith Christ has made them free. This is the reason why civil
liberty follows religious liberty. The theory that all Church power
vests in a divinely constituted hierarchy, begets the theory that all
civil power vests, of divine right, in kings and nobles. And the
theory that Church power vests in the Church itself, and all Church
officers are servants of the Church, of necessity begets the theory
that civil power vests in the people, and that civil magistrates are
servants of the people. These theories God has joined together, and no
man can put them asunder. It was, therefore, by an infallible
instinct, the unfortunate Charles of England said, “No bishop, no
king;” by which he meant, that if there is no despotic power in the
Church, there can be no despotic power in the State; or, if there be
liberty in the Church, there will be liberty in the State.
But this great
Protestant and Presbyterian principle is not only a principle of
liberty, it is also a principle of order. 1st. Because this power of
the people is subject to the infallible authority of the word; and 2d.
Because the exercise of it is in the bands of duly constituted
officers. Presbyterianism does not dissolve the bands of authority,
and resolve the Church into a mob. Though delivered from the
autocratic authority of the hierarchy, it remains under the law to
Christ. It is restricted in the exercise of its power by the word of
God, which bends the reason, heart, and conscience. We only cease to
be the servants of men, that we may be the servants of God. We are
raised into a higher sphere, where perfect liberty is merged in
absolute subjection. As the Church is the aggregate of believers,
there is an intimate analogy between the experience of the individual
believer, and of the Church as a whole. The believer ceases to be the
servant of sin, that he may be the servant of righteousness; he is
redeemed from the law, that he may be the servant of Christ. So the
Church is delivered from an illegitimate authority, not that she may
be lawless, but subject to an authority legitimate and divine. The
Reformers, therefore, as instruments in the hands of God, in
delivering the Church from bondage to prelates, did not make it a
tumultuous multitude, in which every man was a law to himself, free to
believe, and free to do what he pleased. The Church, in all the
exercise of her power, in reference either to doctrine or discipline,
acts under the written law of God, as recorded in his word.
But besides this, the
power of the Church is not only thus limited and guided by the
Scriptures, but the exercise of it is in the hands of legitimate
officers. The Church is not a vast democracy, where everything is
decided by the popular voice. “God is not the author of confusion, but
of peace, (i.e. of order) as in all churches of the saints.” The
Westminster Confession, therefore, expressing the common sentiment of
Presbyterians, says: “The Lord Jesus Christ, as King and Head of his
Church, hath therein appointed a government in the hands of Church
officers, distinct from the civil magistrate.” The doctrine that all
civil power vests ultimately in the people, is not inconsistent with
the doctrine that that power is in the hands of legitimate officers,
legislative, judicial, and executive, to be exercised by them
according to law. Nor is it inconsistent with the doc rive that the
authority of the civil magistrate is jure divino. So the
doctrine that Church power vests in the Church itself, is not
inconsistent with the doctrine that there is a divinely appointed
class of officers, through whom that power is to be exercised. It thus
appears that the principle of liberty and the principle of order are
perfectly harmonious. In denying that all Church power vests
exclusively in the clergy, whom the people have nothing to do but to
believe and to obey, and in affirming that it vests in the Church
itself, while we assert the great principle of Christian liberty, we
assert the no less important principle of evangelical order.
It is not necessary to
occupy your time in quoting either from the Reformed Confessions or
from standard Presbyterian writers, that the principle just stated is
one of the radical principles of our system. It is enough to advert to
the recognition of it involved in the office of ruling elder.
Ruling elders are
declared to be the representatives of the people. They are chosen by
them to act in their name in the government of the Church. The
functions of these elders, therefore, determine the power of the
people; for a representative is one chosen by others to do in their
name what they are entitled to do in their own persons; or rather to
exercise the powers which radically inhere in those for whom they act.
The members of a State Legislature, or of Congress, for example, can
exercise only those powers which are inherent in the people.
The powers, therefore,
exercised by our ruling elders, are powers which belong to the lay
members of the Church. What then are the powers of our ruling elders?
1. As to matters of doctrine and the great office of teaching, they
have an equal voice with the clergy in the formation and adoption of
all symbols of faith. According to Presbyterianism, it is not
competent for the clergy to frame and authoritatively set forth a
creed to be embraced by the Church, and to be made a condition of
either ministerial or Christian communion, without the consent of the
people. Such creeds profess to express the mind of the Church. But the
ministry are not the Church, and, therefore, cannot declare the faith
of the Church, without the co-operation of the Church itself. Such
Confessions, at the time of the Reformation, proceeded from the whole
Church. And all the Confessions now in authority in the different
branches of the great Presbyterian family, were adopted by the people
through their representatives, as the expression of their faith. So,
too, in the selection of preachers of the word; to judging of their
fitness for the sacred office, in deciding whether they shall be
ordained, in judging them when arraigned for heresy, the people have,
in fact, an equal vote with the clergy.1
2. The same thing is
true as to the jus liturgicum, as it is called, of the Church.
The ministry cannot frame a ritual, or liturgy, or directory for
public worship, and enjoin its use on the people to whom they preach.
All such regulations are of force only so far as the people
themselves, in conjunction with their ministers, see fit to sanction
and adopt them.
3. So too, in forming a
constitution, or in enacting rules of procedure, or in making canons,
the people do not merely passively assent; but actively co-operate.
They have, in all these matters, the same authority as the clergy.
4. And finally, in the
exercise of the power of the keys, in opening and shutting the door of
the communion with the Church, the people have a decisive voice. In
all cases of discipline, they are called upon to judge and to decide.
There can, therefore, be
no doubt that Presbyterians do carry out the principle that Church
power vests in the Church itself, and that the people have a right to
a substantive part in its discipline and government. In other words,
we do not hold that all power vests in the clergy, and that the people
have only to listen and obey.
But is this a scriptural
principle? Is it a matter of concession and courtesy, or is it a
matter of divine right? Is our office of ruling elder only one of
expediency, or is it an essential element of our system, arising out
of the very nature of the Church as constituted by God, and,
therefore, of divine authority?
This, in the last
resort, is, after all, only the question, Whether the clergy are the
Church, or whether the people are the Church. If, as Louis the XIV.
said of France, “I am the State,” the clergy can say, “We are the
Church,” then all Church power vests in them, as all civil power
vested in the French monarch. But if the people are the State, civil
power vests in them; and if the people are the Church, power vests in
the people. If the clergy are priests and mediators, the channel of
all divine communications, and the only medium of access to God, then
all power is in their hands; but if all believers are priests and
kings, then they have something more to do than merely passively to
submit. So abhorrent is this idea of the clergy being the Church to
the consciousness of Christians, that no definition of the Church for
the first fifteen centuries after Christ, was ever framed that even
mentioned the clergy. This is said to have been first done by Canisius
and Bellarmine.2 Romanists define the Church to be “those
who profess the true religion, and are subject to the Pope.” Anglicans
define it as “those who profess the true religion, and are subject to
Prelates.” The Westminster Confession defines the visible Church,
“Those who profess the true religion, together with their children.”
In every Protestant symbol, Lutheran or Reformed, the Church is said
to be the company of faithful men. Now, as a definition is the
statement of the essential attributes or characteristics of a subject;
and as, by the common consent of Protestants, the definition of the
Church is complete without even mentioning the clergy, it is evidently
the renunciation of the radical principles of Protestantism, and, of
course, of Presbyterianism, to maintain that all Church power vests in
the clergy. The first argument, therefore, in support of the doctrine
that the people have a right to a substantive part in the government
of the Church is derived from the fact that they, according to the
Scriptures and all Protestant Confessions, constitute the Church.
2. A second argument is
this. All Church power arises from the indwelling of the Spirit;
therefore those in whom the Spirit dwells are the seat of Church
power. But the Spirit dwells in the whole Church, and therefore the
whole Church is the seat of Church power.
The first member of this
syllogism is not disputed. The ground on which Romanists hold that
Church power vests in the bishops, to the exclusion of the people, is
that they hold that the spirit was promised and given to the bishops
as a class. When Christ breathed on his disciples, and said, “Receive
ye the Holy Ghost; whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto
them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained;” and when he
said, “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and
whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven;” and
when he further said, “He that heareth you heareth me; and lo, I am
with you always even to the end of the world;” they hold that he gave
the Holy Ghost to the apostles and to their successors in the
apostleship, to continue unto the end of the world, to guide them.
into the knowledge of the truth, and to constitute them the
authoritative teachers and rulers of the Church. If this is true,
then, of course, all Church power vests in these apostle-bishops. But
on the other hand, if it is true that the Spirit dwells in the whole
Church; if he guides the people as well as the clergy into the
knowledge of the truth; if he animates the whole body, and makes it
the representative of Christ on earth, so that they who hear the
Church hear Christ, and so that what the Church binds on earth is
bound in heaven, then, of course, Church power vests in the Church
itself, and not exclusively in the clergy.3
If there be anything
plain from the whole tenor of the New Testament, and from innumerable
explicit declarations of the word of God, it is that the Spirit dwells
in the whole body of Christ; that he guides all his people into the
knowledge of the truth; that every believer is taught of God, and has
the witness in himself, and has no need that any should teach him, but
the anointing which abideth in him teacheth him all things. It is,
therefore, the teaching of the Church, and not of the clergy,
exclusively, which is ministerially the teaching of the Spirit, and
the judgment of the Church, which is the judgment of the Spirit. It is
a thoroughly antichristian doctrine that the Spirit of God, and
therefore the life and governing power of the Church, resides in the
ministry,, to the exclusion of the, people.
When the great promise
of the Spirit was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, it was fulfilled
not in reference to the apostles only. It was of the whole assembly it
was said, “They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to
speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Paul, in
writing to the Romans, says, “We being many, are one body in Christ,
and every one members one of another. Having, therefore, gifts
differing according to the grace given unto us, whether prophecy, let
us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us
wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth, on teaching.” To the
Corinthians he says “To every one is given a manifestation of the
Spirit to profit withal.. To one is given by the Spirit the word of
wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit.” To the
Ephesians he says: “There is one body and one Spirit; but unto every
one is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.’’
This is the uniform representation of Scripture. The Spirit dwells in
the whole Church, animates, guides, and instructs the whole. If,
therefore, it be true, as all admit, that Church power goes with the
Spirit, and arises out of his presence, it cannot belong exclusively
to the clergy.
3. The third argument on
this subject is derived from the commission given by Christ to his
Church, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature; and lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.”
This commission imposes a certain duty; it conveys certain powers; and
it includes a great promise. The duty is to spread and to maintain the
gospel in its purity over the whole earth. The powers are those
required for the accomplishment of that object, i.e. the power to
teach, to rule, and to exercise discipline. And the promise is the
assurance of Christ’s perpetual presence and assistance. As neither
the duty to extend and sustain the gospel in its purity, nor the
promise of Christ’s presence is peculiar to the apostles as a class,
or to the clergy as a body, but as both the duty and the promise
belong to the whole Church, so also of necessity do the powers on the
possession of which the obligation rests. The command, “Go teach all
nations,” “go preach the gospel to every creature,” falls on the ear
of the whole Church. It wakens a thrill in every heart. Every
Christian feels that the command is addressed to a body of which he is
a member, and that he has a personal obligation to discharge. It was
not the ministry alone to whom this commission was given, and
therefore it is not to them alone that the powers which it conveys
belong.
4. The right of the
people to a substantive part in the government of the Church is
recognized and sanctioned by the apostles in almost every conceivable
way. When they thought it necessary to complete the college of
apostles, after the apostasy of Judas, Peter, addressing the
disciples, the number being an hundred and twenty, said, “Men and
brethren, of these men which have companied with us, all the time the
Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of
John unto that same day he was taken up from us, must one be ordained
to be a witness with us of his resurrection.” And they appointed two,
Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And
they prayed and cast lots, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was
numbered with the apostles.” Thus, in this most important initiatory
step, the people had a decisive voice. So, when deacons were to be
appointed, the whole multitude chose the seven men who were to be
invested with the office. When the question arose as to the continued
obligation of the Mosaic law, the authoritative decision proceeded
from the whole Church. “It pleased,” says the sacred historian, “the
apostles and elders, with the whole Church, to send chosen men of
their own company to Antioch.” And they wrote letters by them after
this manner: “The apostles, elders, and brethren, send greeting unto
the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch, and Syria, and
Cilicia.” The brethren, therefore, were associated with the ministry
in the decision of this great doctrinal and practical question. Most
of the apostolic epistles are addressed to churches, i.e. the saints
or believers, of
Corinth, Ephesus,
Galatia, and Philippi. In these epistles, the people are assumed to be
responsible for the orthodoxy of their teachers, and for the purity of
church members. They are required not to believe every spirit, not to
try the spirits; to sit in judgment on the question whether those who
came to them as religious teachers were really sent of God. The
Galatians are severely censured for giving heed to false doctrines,
and are called to pronounce even an apostle anathema, if he preached
another gospel. The Corinthians are censured for allowing an
incestuous person to remain in their communion; they are commanded to
excommunicate him, and afterwards, on his repentance, to restore him
to their fellowship. These and other cases of the kind determine
nothing as to the way in which the power of the people was exercised;
but they prove conclusively that such power existed. The command to
watch over the orthodoxy of ministers and the purity of members, was
not addressed exclusively to the clergy, but to the whole Church. We
believe that, as in the Synagogue, and in every well ordered society,
the powers inherent in the society are exercised through appropriate
organs. But the fact that these commands are addressed to the people,
or to the whole Church, proves that they were responsible, and that
they had a substantive part in the government of the Church. It would
be absurd in other nations to address any complaints or exhortations
to the people of Russia in reference to national affairs, because they
have no part in the government. It would be no less absurd to address
Roman Catholics as a self-governing body. But such addresses may well
be made by the people of one of our States to the people of another,
because the people have the power, though it is exercised through
legitimate organs. While, therefore, the epistles of the apostles do
not prove that the churches whom they addressed had not regular
officers through whom the power of the Church was to be exercised,
they abundantly prove that such power vested in the people; that they
had a right and were bound to take part in the government of the
Church, and in the preservation of its purity.
It was only gradually,
through a course of ages, that the power thus pertaining to the people
was absorbed by the clergy. The progress of this absorption kept pace
with the corruption of the Church, until the entire domination of the
hierarchy was finally established.
The first great
principle, then, of Presbyterianism is the re-assertion of the
primitive doctrine that Church power belongs to the whole Church; that
that power is exercised through legitimate officers, and therefore
that the office of ruling elders as the representatives of the people,
is not a matter of expediency, but an essential element of our system,
arising out of the nature of the Church, and resting on the authority
of Christ.
II. The second great
principle of Presbyterianism is, that presbyters who minister in word
and doctrine are the highest permanent officers of the Church.
1. Our first remark on
this subject is that the ministry is an office, and not merely a work.
An office is a station to which the incumbent must be appointed, which
implies certain prerogatives, which it is the duty of those concerned
to recognize and submit to. A work, on the other hand, is something
which any man who has the ability may undertake. This is an obvious
distinction. It is not every man who has the qualifications for a
Governor of a State, who has the right to act as such. He must be
regularly appointed to the post. So it is not every one who has the
qualifications for the work of the ministry, who can assume the office
of the ministry. He must be regularly appointed. This is plain; (a).
From the titles given to ministers in the Scriptures, which imply
official station. (b) From their qualifications being specified in the
word of God, and the mode of judging of those qualifications being
prescribed. (c) From the express command to appoint to the office only
such as, on due examination, are found competent. (d) From the record
of such appointment in the word of God. (e) From the official
authority ascribed to them in the Scriptures, and the command that
such authority should be duly recognized. We need not further argue
this point, as it is not denied, except by the Quakers, and a few such
writers as Neander, who ignore all distinction between the clergy and
laity, except what arises from diversity of gifts.
2. Our second remark is,
that the office is of divine appointment, not merely in the sense in
which the civil powers are ordained of God, but in the sense that
ministers derive their authority from Christ, and not from the people.
Christ has not only ordained that there shall be such officers in his
Church—he has not only specified their duties and prerogatives—but he
gives the requisite qualifications, and calls those thus qualified,
and by that call gives them their official authority. The function of
the Church in the premises, is not to confer the office, but to sit in
judgment on the question, whether the candidate is called of God; and
if satisfied on that point, to express its judgment in the public and
solemn manner prescribed in Scripture.
That ministers do thus
derive their authority from Christ, follows not merely from the
theocratical character of the Church, and the relation which Christ,
its king, sustains to it, as the source of all authority and power,
but,
(a) From the fact that
it is expressly asserted, that Christ gave some apostles, some
prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the
edifying of the saints, and for the work of the ministry. He, and not
the people, constituted or appointed the apostles, prophets, pastors,
and teachers.
(b) Ministers are,
therefore, called the servants, the messengers, the ambassadors of
Christ. They speak in Christ’s name, and by his authority. They are
sent by Christ to the Church, to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all
long-suffering and doctrine. They are indeed the servants of the
Church, as labouring in her service, and as subject to her authority
servants as opposed to lords but not in the sense of deriving their
commission and powers from the Church.
(c) Paul exhorts the
presbyters of Ephesus, “To take heed to all the flock over which the
Holy Ghost had made them overseers.” To Archippus he says, “Take heed
to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord.” It was then the
Holy Ghost that appointed these presbyters, and made them overseers.
(d) This is involved in
the whole doctrine of the Church as the body of Christ, in which he
dwells by his Spirit, giving to each member his gifts, qualifications,
and functions, dividing to every one severally as he wills; and by
these gifts making one an apostle, another a prophet, and another a
teacher, another a worker of miracles. It is thus that the apostle
reconciles the doctrine that ministers derive their authority and
power from Christ, and not from the people, with the doctrine that
Church powers vest ultimately in the Church as a whole. He refers to
the analogy between the human body and the Church as the body of
Christ. As in the human body, the soul resides not in any one part to
the exclusion of the rest; and as life and power belong to it as a
whole, though one part is an eye, another an ear, and another a hand;
so Christ, by his Spirit, dwells in the Church, and all power belongs
to the Church, though the indwelling Spirit gives to each member his
function and office. So that ministers are no more appointed by the
Church, than the eye by the hands and feet. This is the representation
which pervades the New Testament, and necessarily supposes that the
ministers of the Church are the servants of Christ, selected and
appointed by him through the Holy Ghost.
3. The third remark
relates to the functions of the presbyters. (a) They are charged with
the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments.
They are the organs of the Church in executing the great commission to
make disciples of all nations, teaching them, and baptizing them in
the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. (b) They are rulers in
the house of God. (c) They are invested with the power of the keys,
opening and shutting the door of the Church. They are clothed with all
these powers in virtue of their office. If sent where the Church does
not already exist, they exercise them in gathering and founding
churches. If they labour in the midst of churches already established,
they exercise these powers in concert with other presbyters, and with
the representatives of the people. It- is important to notice this
distinction. The functions above mentioned belong to the ministerial
office, and, therefore, to every minister. When alone he of necessity
exercises his functions alone, in gathering and organizing churches;
but when they are gathered, he is associated with other ministers, and
with the representatives of the people, and, therefore, can no longer
act alone in matters of government and discipline. We see this
illustrated in the apostolic age. The apostles, and those ordained by
them, acted in virtue of their ministerial office, singly in founding
churches, but afterwards always in connection with other ministers and
elders. This is, in point of fact, the theory of the ministerial
office included in the whole system of Presbyterianism.
That this is the
scriptural view of the presbyterial office, or that presbyters are
invested with the powers above referred to, is plain,
(a) From the significant
titles given to them in the word of God; they are called teachers,
rulers, shepherds or pastors, stewards, overseers or bishops,
builders, watchmen, ambassadors, witnesses.
(b) From the
qualifications required for the office. They must be apt to teach,
well instructed, able rightly to divide the word of God, sound in the
faith, able to resist gainsayers, able to rule their own families; for
if a man cannot rule his own house, how can he take care of the
Church of God? He must
have the personal qualities which give him authority. He must not be a
novice, but grave, sober, temperate, vigilant, of good behaviour, and
of good report.
(c) From the
representations given of their duties. They are to preach the word, to
feed the flock of God, to guide it as a shepherd; they are to labour
for the edification of the saints; to watch for souls as those who
must give an account; they must take heed to the Church to guard it
against false teachers, or, as the apostle calls them, “grievous
wolves;” they are to exercise episcopal supervision, because the Holy
Ghost, as Paul said to the presbyters of Ephesus, had made them
bishops, Acts xx. 28, and the Apostle Peter exhorts presbyters to feed
the flock of God, taking episcopal oversight thereof, not of
constraint, but willingly. They are, therefore, bishops. Every time
that word, or any of its cognates, is used in the New Testament, in
relation to the Christian ministry, it refers to presbyters, except in
Acts i. 20, where the word bishopric is used in a quotation from the
Septuagint, applied to the office of Judas.
4. The office of
presbyters is a permanent one.
This is plain: (a)
Because the gift is permanent. Every office implies a gift of which it
is the appointed organ. If therefore, a gift be permanent, the organ
for its exercise must be permanent. The prophets of the New Testament
were the recipients of occasional inspiration. As the gift of
inspiration has ceased, the office of prophet has ceased. But as the
gift of teaching and ruling is permanent, so also is the office of
teacher and ruler.
(b) As the Church is
commissioned to make disciples of all nations, to preach the gospel to
every creature; as saints always need to be fed, and built up in their
most holy faith, she must always have the officers which are her
divinely appointed organs for the accomplishment of this work.
(c) We accordingly find
that the apostles not only ordained presbyters in every city, but that
they gave directions for their ordination in all subsequent time,
prescribing their qualifications, and the mode of their appointment.
(d) In point of fact,
they have continued to the present time. This, therefore, is not a
matter open to dispute; and it is not, in fact, disputed by any with
whom we are now concerned.
5. Finally, in relation
to this part of our subject, presbyters are the highest permanent
officers of the Church.
(a) This may be
inferred, in the first place, from the fact that there are no higher
permanent functions attributed in the New Testament to the Christian
ministry, than those which are therein attributed to presbyters. If
they are charged with the preaching of the gospel, with the extension,
continuance, and purity of the Church—if they are teachers and rulers,
charged with episcopal powers and oversight, what more, of a permanent
character, is demanded?
2. But, secondly, it is
admitted that there were, during the apostolic age, officers of a
higher grade than presbyters, viz: apostles and prophets. The latter,
it is conceded, were temporary. The only question, therefore, relates
to the apostles. Prelatists admit that there is no permanent class or
grade of church officers intermediate between apostles and presbyters.
But they teach that the apostleship was designed to be perpetual, and
that prelates are the official successors of the original apostles. If
this is so, if they have the office, they must have the gifts of an
apostle. If they have the prerogatives, they must have the attributes
of the original messengers of Christ. Even in civil government every
office presumes inward qualifications. An order of nobility, without
real superiority, is a mere sham. Much more is this necessary, in the
living organism of the Church, in which the indwelling Spirit
manifests itself as he wills. An apostle with out the “word of
wisdom,” was a false apostle; a teacher without “the word of
knowledge,” was no teacher; a worker of miracles without the gift of
miracles, was a magician; any one pretending to speak with tongues
without the gift of tongues, was a deceiver. In like manner an apostle
without the gifts of an apostle, is a mere pretender. There might as
well be a man without a soul.
Romanists tell us that
the Pope is the vicar of Christ; that he is his successor as the
universal head and ruler of the Church on earth. If this is so, he
must be a Christ. If he has Christ’s prerogatives, he must have
Christ’s attributes. He cannot have the one without the other. If the
Pope, by divine appointment, is invested with universal dominion over
the Christian world; if all his decisions as to faith and duty are
infallible and authoritative; if dissent from his decisions or
disobedience to his commands forfeits salvation, then is he heir to
the gifts as well as to the office of Christ. If he claims the office,
without having the gifts, then is he anti-christ, “the man of sin, the
son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is
called God, or that is worshipped, so that he, as God, sitteth in the
temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” Romanists concede this
principle. In ascribing to the Pope the prerogatives of Christ, they
are forced to ascribe to him his attributes. Do they not enthrone him?
Do they not kiss his feet? Do they not offer him incense? Do they not
address him with blasphemous titles? Do they not pronounce anathemas
against, and debar from heaven, all who do not acknowledge his
authority?
This is the reason why
opposition to Popery in the breasts of Protestants is a religious
feeling. Caesar Augustus might rule the world; the Czar of Russia may
attain to universal dominion, but such dominion would not involve the
assumption of divine attributes; and therefore submission to it would
not involve apostasy from God, and opposition to it would not of
necessity be a religious duty. But to be the Vicar of Christ, to claim
to exercise his prerogatives on earth, does involve a claim to his
attributes, and therefore our opposition to Popery is opposition to a
man claiming to be God.
But if this principle
applies to the case of the Pope, as all Protestants admit, it must
also apply to the apostleship. If any set of men claim to be apostles,
if they assert the right to exercise apostolic, authority, they cannot
avoid claiming the possession of apostolic endowments; and if they
have not the latter, their claim to the former is an usurpation and
pretence.
What, then, were the
apostles? It is plain from the divine record that they were men
immediately commissioned by Christ to make a full and authoritative
revelation of his religion; to organize the Church; to furnish it with
officers and laws, and to start it on its career of conquest through
the world.
To qualify them for this
work, they received, first, the word of wisdom, or a complete
revelation of the doctrines of the gospel; secondly, the gift of the
Holy Ghost, in such manner as to render them infallible in the
communication of the truth, and in the exercise of their authority as
rulers; thirdly, the gift of working miracles in confirmation of their
mission, and of communicating the Holy Ghost by the imposition of
their hands.
The prerogatives arising
out of these gifts, were, first absolute authority in all matters of
faith and practice; secondly, authority equally absolute in
legislating for the Church as to its constitution and laws; thirdly,
universal jurisdiction over the officers and members of the Church.
Paul, when he claimed to
be an apostle, claimed this immediate commission, this revelation of
the gospel, this plenary inspiration, and this absolute authority and
general jurisdiction. And in support of his claims, he appeals not
only to the manifest co-operation of God through the Spirit, but to
the signs of an apostle, which he wrought in all patience, in signs,
and wonders, and mighty deeds. 2 Cor. xii. 12.
It followed necessarily
from the actual possession by the apostles of these gifts of
revelation and inspiration, which rendered them infallible, that
agreement with them in faith, and subjection to them were necessary to
salvation. The apostle John, therefore, said, “He that knoweth God
heareth us; and he that is not of God, heareth not us. Hereby we know
the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” 1 John iv. 6. And the
apostle Paul pronounced accursed even an angel should he deny the
gospel which he preached, and as he preached it. The writings of the
apostles, therefore, have in all ages and in every part of the Church,
been regarded as infallible and authoritative in all matters of faith
and practice. Now, the argument is, that if prelates are apostles,
they must have apostolic gifts. They have not those gifts, therefore
they are not apostles.
The first member of this
syllogism can hardly need further proof. It is evident from the nature
of the case, and from the Scriptures, that the prerogatives of the
apostles arose out of their peculiar endowments. It was because they
were inspired, and consequently infallible, that they were invested
with the authority which they exercised. An uninspired apostle is as
much a solecism as an uninspired prophet.
As to the second point,
viz.: that prelates have not apostolic gifts, it needs no argument.
They have no special revelation; they are not inspired, they have not
either the power of working miracles, or of conferring miraculous
gifts, and, therefore, they are not apostles.
So inseparable is the
connection between an office and its gifts, that prelates, in claiming
to be apostles, are forced to make a show of possessing apostolic
gifts. Though not inspired individually, they claim to be inspired as
a body; though not infallible singly, they claim to be infallible
collectively; though they have not the power of conferring miraculous
gifts, they claim the power of giving the grace of orders. These
claims, however, are not less preposterous than, the assumption of
personal inspiration. The historical fact, that the prelates
collectively, as well as individually, are un inspired and fallible,
is not less palpable than that they are mortal. Those of one age
differed from those of another. Those of one Church pronounced
accursed those of another Greeks against Latins, Latins against
Greeks, and Anglicans against both. Besides, if prelates are apostles,
then there can be no religion and no salvation among those not subject
to their authority. He is not of God, said the apostle John, who
heareth not us. This is a conclusion which Romanists and Anglicans
admit, and boldly assert. It is, however, a complete reductio ad
absurdum. It might as well be asserted that the sun never shines
out of Greenland., as that there is no religion beyond the pale of
prelatical churches. To maintain this position, necessitates the
perversion of the very nature of religion. As faith in our Lord Jesus
Christ, repentance towards God, love, and holy living, are found
outside of prelatical churches, prelatists maintain that religion does
not consist in these fruits of the Spirit, but in something external
and formal. The assumption, therefore, that prelates are apostles, of
necessity leads to the conclusion that prelates have the gifts of the
apostles, and that to the conclusion that submission to their teaching
and jurisdiction, is essential to salvation; and that again, to the
conclusion that religion is not an inward state, but an external
relation. These are not merely the logical, but the historical
sequences of the theory that the apostolic office is perpetual.
Wherever that theory has prevailed, it has led to making religion
ceremonial, and divorcing it from piety and morality. We would beg
those who love Christ more than their order, and those who believe in
evangelical religion, to lay this consideration to heart. The doctrine
of a perpetual apostleship in the Church, is not a mere speculative
error, but one, to the last degree, destructive.
We cannot pursue this
subject further. That the apostolic office is temporary, is a plain
historical fact. The apostles, the twelve, stand out just as
conspicuous as an isolated body in the history of the Church, without
predecessors, and without successors, as Christ himself does. They
disappear from history. The title; the thing itself, the gifts, the
functions, all ceased when John, the last of the twelve, ascended to
heaven.
If it is a fearful thing
to put the Pope in the place of Christ, and to make a man our God; it
is also a fearful thing to put erring men in the place of infallible
apostles, and make faith in their teaching, and submission to their
authority, the condition of grace and salvation.
From this awful bondage,
brethren, we are free. We bow to the authority of Christ. We submit to
the infallible teachings of his inspired apostles; but we deny that
the infallible is continued in the fallible, or the divine in the
human.
But if the apostolic
office was temporary, then presbyters are the highest permanent
officers of the Church, because, as is conceded by nine-tenths,
perhaps by ninety-nine hundredths of prelates, the Scriptures make no
mention of any permanent officers intermediate between the apostles
and the presbyter-bishops of the New Testament. There is no command to
appoint such officers, no record of their appointment, no
specification of their qualifications, no title for them, either in
the Scriptures or in ecclesiastical history. If prelates are not
apostles, they are presbyters, holding their pre eminence by human,
and not by divine authority.
III. As then presbyters
are all of the same rank, and as they exercise their power in the
government of the Church, in connection with the people, or their
representatives, this of necessity gives rise to Sessions in our
individual congregations, and to Presbyteries, Synods, and Assemblies,
for the exercise of more extended jurisdiction. This brings into view
the third great principle of Presbyterianism, the government of the
Church by judicatories composed of presbyters and elders, &c. This
takes for granted the unity of the Church in opposition to the theory
of the Independents.
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. It has one Lord, one faith, one baptism. The principles of
government laid down in the Scriptures bind the whole Church. The
terms of admission, and the legitimate grounds of exclusion, are
everywhere the same. The same qualifications are everywhere to be
demanded for admission to the sacred office, and the same grounds for
deposition. Every man who is properly received as a member of a
particular church, becomes a member of the Church universal; every one
rightfully excluded from a particular church, is excluded from the
whole Church; every one rightfully ordained to the ministry in one
church, is a minister of the universal Church, and when rightfully
deposed in one, he ceases to be a minister in any. Hence, while every
particular church has a right to manage its own affairs and administer
its own discipline, it cannot be independent and irresponsible in the
exercise of that right. As its members are members of the Church
universal, and those whom it excommunicates are, according to the
Scriptural theory, delivered unto Satan, and cut off from the
communion of the saints, the acts of a particular church become the
acts of the whole Church, and therefore the whole has the right to see
that they are performed according to the law of Christ. Hence, on the
one hand, the right of appeal; and, on the other, the right of review
and control.
This is the Presbyterian
theory on this subject; that it is the scriptural doctrine appears, 1.
From the nature of the Church. The Church is everywhere represented as
one. It is one body, one family, one fold, one king dom. It is one
because pervaded by one Spirit. We are all baptized into one Spirit so
as to become, says the apostle, one body. This indwelling of the
Spirit which thus unites all the members of Christ’s body, produces
not only that subjective or inward union which manifests itself in
sympathy and affection, in unity of faith and love, but also outward
union and communion. It leads Christians to unite for the purposes of
worship, and of mutual watch and care. It requires them to be subject
one to another in the fear of the Lord. It brings them all into
subjection to the word of God as the standard of faith and practice.
It gives them not only an interest in each other’s welfare, purity,
and edification, but it imposes the obligation to promote these
objects. If one member suffers, all suffer with it; and if one member
is honoured, all rejoice with it. All this is true, not merely of
those frequenting the same place of worship, but of the universal body
of believers. So that an independent church is as much a solecism as
an independent Christian, or as an independent finger of the human
body, or an independent branch of a tree. If the Church is a living
body united to the same head, governed by the same laws, and pervaded
by the same Spirit, it is impossible that one part should be
independent of all the rest.
2. All the reasons which
require the subjection of a believer to the brethren of a particular
church, require his subjection to all his brethren in the Lord. The
ground of this obligation is not the church covenant. It is not the
compact into which a number of believers enter, and which binds only
those who are parties to it. Church power has a much higher source
than the consent of the governed. The Church is a divinely constituted
society, deriving its power from its charter. Those who join it, join
it as an existing society, and a society existing with certain
prerogatives and privileges, which they come to share, and not to
bestow. This divinely constituted society, which every believer is
bound to join, is not the local and limited association of his own
neighbourhood, but the universal brotherhood of believers; and
therefore all his obligations of communion and obedience terminate on
the whole Church. He is bound to obey his brethren, not because he has
agreed to do so, but because they are his brethren—because they are
temples of the Holy Ghost, enlightened, sanctified, and guided by Him.
It is impossible, therefore, to limit the obedience of a Christian to
the particular congregation of which he is a member, or to make one
such congregation independent of all others, without utterly
destroying the very nature of the Church, and tearing asunder the
living members of Christ’s body. If this attempt should be fully
accomplished, these separate churches would as certainly bleed to
death, as a limb when severed from the body.
3. The Church, during
the apostolic age, did not consist of isolated, independent
congregations, but was one body, of which the separate churches were
constituent members, each subject to all the rest, or to an authority
which extended over all. This appears, in the first place, from the
history of the origin of those churches. The apostles were commanded
to remain in Jerusalem until they received power from on high. On the
day of Pentecost the promised Spirit was poured out, and they began to
speak as the Spirit gave them utterance. Many thousands in that city
were added to the Lord, and they continued in the apostles’ doctrine
and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and prayer. They constituted
the Church in Jerusalem. It was one not only spiritually, but
externally, united in the same worship, and subject to the same
rulers. When scattered abroad, they preached the word everywhere, and
great multitudes were added to the Church. The believers in every
place were associated in separate, but not independent churches, for
they all remained subject to a common tribunal.
For, secondly, the
apostles constituted a bond of union to the whole body of believers.
There is not the slightest evidence that the apostles had different
dioceses. Paul wrote with full authority to the Church in Rome before
he had ever visited the imperial city. Peter addressed his epistles to
the churches of Pontus, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, the very
centre of Paul’s field of labour. That the apostles exercised this
general jurisdiction, and were thus the bond of external union to the
Church, arose, as we have seen, from the very nature of their office.
Having been commissioned to found and organize the Church, and being
so filled with the Spirit as to render them infallible, their word was
law. Their inspiration necessarily secured this universal authority.
We accordingly find that they everywhere exercised the powers not only
of teachers, but also of rulers. Paul speaks of the power given to him
for edification; of the things which he ordained in all the churches.
His epistles are filled with such orders, which were of binding
authority then as now. He threatens the Corinthians to come to them
with a rod; he cut off a member of their church, whom they had
neglected to discipline; and he delivered. “Hymeneus and Alexander
unto Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme. As a historical
fact, therefore, the apostolic churches were not independent
congregations, but were all subject to one common authority.
In the third place, this
is further evident from the Council at Jerusalem. No thing need be
assumed that is not expressly mentioned in the record. The simple
facts of the case are, that a controversy having arisen in the church
at Antioch, concerning the Mosaic law, instead of settling it among
themselves as an independent body, they referred the case to the
apostles and elders at. Jerusalem, and there it was authoritatively
decided, not for that church only, but for all others. Paul,
therefore, in his next missionary journey, as he “passed through the
cities, delivered to them,” it is said, “the decrees for to keep,
which were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at
Jerusalem.” Acts xvi. 4. It matters not whether the authority of that
Council was due to the inspiration of its chief members or not. It is
enough that it had authority over the whole Church. The several
congregations were not independent, but were united under one common
tribunal.
4th. In the fourth
place, we may appeal to the common consciousness of Christians, as
manifested in the whole history of the Church. Everything organic has
what may be called nisus formatavus; an inward force, by which
it is impelled to assume the form suited to its nature. This inward
impulse may, by circumstances, be impeded or misdirected, so that the
normal state of a plant or animal may never be attained. Still, this
force never fails to manifest its existence, nor the state to which it
tends. What is thus true in nature, is no less true in the Church.
There is nothing more conspicuous in her history than the law by which
believers are impelled to express their inward unity by outward union.
It has been manifested in all ages, and under all circumstances. It
gave rise to all the early councils. It determined the idea of heresy
and schism. It led to the exclusion from all churches of those who,
for the denial of the common faith, were excluded from any one, and
who refused to acknowledge their subjection to the Church as a whole.
This feeling was clearly exhibited at the time of the Reformation. The
churches then formed, ran together as naturally as drops of
quicksilver; and when this union was prevented by internal or external
circumstances, it was deplored as a great evil. It may do for men of
the world to attribute this remarkable characteristic in the history
of the Church, to the love of power, or to some other unworthy source.
But it is not thus to be accounted for. It is a law of the Spirit. If
what all men do, is to be referred to some abiding principle of human
nature; what all Christians do, must be referred to something which
belongs to them as Christians.
So deeply seated is this
conviction that outward union and mutual subjection is the normal
state of the Church, that it manifests itself in those whose theory
leads them to deny and resist it. Their Consociations, Associations,
and Advisory Councils, are so many devices to satisfy an inward
craving, and to prevent the dissolution to which it is felt that
absolute Independency must inevitably lead.
That then, the Church is
one, in the sense that a smaller part should be subject to a larger,
and a larger to the whole, is evident. 1. From its nature as being one
kingdom, one family, one body, having one head, one faith, one written
constitution, and actuated by one Spirit; 2d. From the command of
Christ that we should obey our brethren, not because they live near to
us; not because we have covenanted to obey them; but because they are
our brethren, the temples and organs of the Holy Ghost; 3. From the
fact that during the apostolic age the churches were not independent
bodies, but subject in all matters of doctrine, order, and discipline,
to a common tribunal; and 4. Because the whole history of the Church
proposes that this union and the subjection is the normal state of the
Church towards which it strives by an inward law of its being. If it
is necessary that one Christian should be subject to other Christians;
it is no less necessary that one church should be subject in the same
spirit, to the same extent, and on the same grounds, to other
churches.
We have now completed
our exposition of Presbyterianism. It must strike every one that it is
no device of man. It is not an external frame-work, having no
connection with the inward life of the Church. It is a real growth. It
is the outward expression of the inward law of the Church’s being. If
we teach that the people should have a substantive part in the
government of the Church, it is not merely because we deem it
healthful and expedient, but because the Holy Ghost dwells in the
people of God, and gives the ability and confers the right to govern.
If we teach that presbyters are the highest permanent officers of the
Church, it is because those gifts by which the apostles and prophets
were raised above presbyters, have, in fact, ceased. If we teach that
the separate congregations of believers are not independent, it is
because the Church is, in fact, one body, all the parts of which are
mutually dependent.
If this is so—if there
is an outward form of the Church which corresponds with its inward
life, a form which is the natural expression and product of that life,
then that form must be most conducive to its progress and development.
Men may, by art, force a tree to grow in any fantastic shape a
perverted taste may choose. But it is at the sacrifice of its vigour
and productiveness. To reach its perfection, it must be left to unfold
itself according to the law of its nature. It is so with the Church.
If the people possess the gifts and graces which qualify and entitle
them to take part in the government, then the exercise of that right
tends to the development of those gifts and graces; and the denial of
the right tends to their depression. In all the forms of despotism,
whether civil or ecclesiastical, the people are degraded; and in all
forms of scriptural liberty, they are proportionably elevated. Every
system which demands intelligence tends to produce it. Every man feels
that it is not only one of the greatest advantages of our republican
institutions that they tend to the education and elevation of the
people, but that their successful operation, demanding popular
intelligence and virtue, renders it necessary that constant exertion
should be directed to the attainment of that end. As republican
institutions cannot exist among the ignorant and vicious, so
Presbyterianism must find the people enlightened and virtuous, or make
them so.
It is the combination of
the principles of liberty and order in the Presbyterian system, the
union of the rights of the people with subjection to legitimate
authority, that has made it the parent and guardian of civil liberty
in every part of the world. This, however, is merely an incidental
advantage. The Church organization has higher aims. It is designed for
the extension and establishment of the gospel, and for the edification
of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and
knowledge of the Son of God; and that polity must be best adapted to
this end, which is most congenial with the inward nature of the
Church. It is on this ground we rest our preference for
Presbyterianism. We do not regard it as a skilful product of human
wisdom; but as a divine institution, founded on the word of God, and
as the genuine product of the inward life of the Church.
FOOTNOTES
1 This point is argued
at length by Turrettin, in his chapter, De Jure Vocationis. He
proves that the right to call and appoint ministers belongs to the
whole Church: 1. Quia data est eccclesiis potestas clavium. He quotes
Tostatus, who, he says, proves by various arguments, “Claves datas
esse toti ecclesite, atque adeo jus illarum exercendarum ad eam
primario et radicaliter pertinere, ad alios vero tantum secundario et
participative.
2. Idem probatur ex jure ministerii, quod ecclesiae competit.
3. Ex jure superioritatis. Quia auctoritas et jus actionis ad
superiorem, non ad inferiorem pertinet. At ecclesia est superior
pastoribus, non pastures ecclesiae. 4. Ex probatione doctorum. Quia ad
ilium pertinet jus vocandi, cujus est discernere doctores a
seductoribus, probare sanam doctrinam, vocem Christi a voce
pseudapostolorum distinguere, alienum non sequi, anathematizare eos
qui aliud evangelium praedicant.
5. Ex praxi apostolorum.
6. Ex ecclesia primetiva.”
Gerhard, the great
Lutheran theologian of the seventeenth century, teaches the same
doctrine. Tomus xii. p. 85. Cuicunque claves regni coeloruin ab
ipso Christo sunt traditae, penes eum est jus vocandi ecclesioe
ministros. Atqui toti ecclesiae traditae sunt a Christo claves regni
coelorum. Ergo
penes totam ecclesiam est jus vocandi ministros. Propositio confirmata
ex definitione clavium regni coelorum. Per claves enim potestas
ecclesiastica intelligitur, cujus pars est jus vocandi et constituendi
ecclesiae mi nistros. He quotes Augustin, lib. I. de doctrina Christ.
cap. 18: “Has claves dedit ecclesiae suae, ut quee solveret in terra,
soluta essent in coelos et quae ligaret in terra, ligata essent in
coelo.”
In the Smalcald
Articles it is said:—Ad haec necesse est fateri, quod claves non
ad personam unius certi hominis, sed ad ecclesiam pertineant, ut multa
elarissima et firmissima argumenta testantur. Nam Christus de clavibus
dicens, Matt. xviii. addit: ubi cunque duo vel tres consenserint super
terram etc Tribuit igitur principaliter claves ecclesim, et immediate;
sicut et ob earn causam ecclesia principaliter habet, jus vocationis.—Hase,
Libri Symbolici, p. 345.
Ubicunque est ecciesia,
ibi est jus administrandi evangelii. Quare necesse est, ecclesiam
retinere jus vocandi et ordinandi ministros. Et hoc jus est donum
proprie datum ecclesiœ, quod nulla humana auctoritas ecclesive eripere
potest.—Ibid. p. 353.
2 Sherlock on the
Nature of the Church, p. 36.
3 Certe ex pastorum
superbia nata est haec tyrannis, ut quac ad communem totius ecclesiae
statum pertinent, excluso populo, paucoru.m arbitrio, ne dicam
libidini, subjecta sint.—Calvin on Acts xv. 22.
Back to Top
