CHAPTER I.

THE TRUE APOSTOLICAL OR MINISTERIAL SUCCESSION CLAIMED BY PRESBYTERIANS.

§ 1. Introductory remarks.

We have in a former work conducted our readers through an extended examination of the mysterious and transcendental doctrine of prelatical apostolical succession.1 And, surely, in no other instance has there been such a manifestation of the blinding influence of controversy, in magnifying into monstrous proportion some limb of the body of truth, and in embodying, to the diseased eye, some self-originated theory, in the habiliments of divinity. The Persians, who are heresiarchs from the pure sultan faith, in consequence of their desperate struggles to maintain the claims of Ali to the true succession of the impostor's vacant office, have been led to regard him as a divine being, nay, even as God, and to give him, practically, the first place in their reverence and affections. And in the same way prelatists, by their ceaseless efforts to substantiate their intolerant and popish dogma of the succession, have been led to exalt this doctrine so far as to make it, practically, the great fundamental tenet and corner-stone of their religion. The church has been made to displace Christ, who is its only and ever-living Head. The ministry has been substituted for the divine and omnipresent energies of the Holy Spirit. And christianity, pure, spiritual, and heavenly, has been transformed into a system of outward rites and ordinances. This leaven has not only begun to work, but is now extensively diffusing itself through the mass of society. An alarm has been blown in Zion. The voice of warning, rebuke, and condemnation, is now heard from

1) The Prelatical Doctrine of Apostolical Succession Examined, and the Protestant Ministry Defended

against the exclusive assumptions of Popery and High-Churchism, 1841.

high places, while the enemy is continually rejoicing over fresh deserters added to his ranks. Every where, and in all denominations, there is an earnest expectation of coming changes, and of the hour and the power of darkness. All are on the alert. All are inquiring after the old paths, and examining well into the foundations upon which they stand, and the claims which they are warranted in maintaining. A deep and growing conviction exists, that there is but one foundation upon which any doctrine or practice can be established as of divine institution, and that is, the word of God; and that whatever wants its sanction and support, if it pretends to divine authority, or to be an article of the faith, involves a blasphemous assumption of the divine prerogatives.

It is full time that the presbyterian church also should be up and doing. Every day brings with it fresh arguments for activity and zeal. Every day shows us, that men are letting go their principles, being driven about by every wind of doctrine, and beguiled by the cunning craftiness of specious and sophistical pretensions. It is time for us to realize the truth, that the fault of all this apostacy and insecurity, rests mainly with ourselves. We have suffered the rising generation to grow up ignorant of our principles, and of those strong and invincible scriptural grounds upon which our system 'is builded of God.' And thus have we beheld many, who professed to be the friends, and even the pillars, of our church, forsaking us and becoming our warmest opponents. Let us then learn wisdom by our past experience, and from defeat reap victory. And let every professed presbyterian, feel that he owes it to the church with which he is connected, or in which he has been brought up; to the community in which he lives; to all those from whom he differs; to himself; and above all to the divine Head of the church; to investigate the nature, the grounds, and the principles of presbyterianism, that he may give a reason of the hope that is in him to every one that asketh it. Parents should teach their children, teachers their scholars, and bishops their flocks, those 'first principles of the oracles of God,' which are the elements of our faith, and the guides to our practice. We will not glory in ourselves, or in what we are personally, but well may we glory in belonging to a church that is scriptural in her doctrine, apostolic in her constitution, and primitive in her discipline.

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More especially should this spirit animate all who are permitted to receive ordination at the hands of our church minister at her altars, and to preach through her the unsearchable riches of Christ. The apostle Paul, who was among the

greatest of all the apostles, in gifts preeminent, in graces heavenly, in labors more abundant, in success more illustrious; in addressing the outcast and perishing Gentiles, could exultingly declare, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office.' And shall not they who are successors to this same apostle, in his ordinary ministry, and by the laying on of the same hands; and who are sent forth to the same Gentile race, for the same glorious end; shall they not also magnify their office? True, they are not apostles, as he was an apostle; they are not, as he was, called by the immediate voice of the Son of God; endued with the plenitude of all divine and supernatural gifts; filled with the inspiration of the ever-blessed Spirit, and commissioned as an ambassador to the whole world. It was not, however, in this extraordinary capacity, as legate of the exalted Redeemer, the apostle rejoiced; but in that ordinary character of a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, by which he was empowered to preach the glad tidings of salvation to the long lost Gentiles. It was as he stood forth the exemplar and representative of all future ministers of Christ, in all coming ages of the church, the apostle magnified his office. It was as by the rich grace of God he had been made a preacher of righteousness, a coworker with other presbyters, ordained by their hands, associated with them in the ordination of those who should be able to teach, and to set apart others also, that Paul gloried.

As presbyters, therefore, who have been called of God, though not immediately, yet mediately by his Holy Spirit; who have been called, also, by his church, through the offices of men chosen and appointed for this work; and whose high calling it is to speak unto the Gentiles the wonderful things of God; shall not we also, who are put unto this ministry, magnify our office, not in the spirit of boasting, but of humble and devout thanksgiving? Our office? it is divine in its origin, holy in its services, heavenly in its aim; unlimited in the field opened by it to the sublimest powers of man; and transcending all human thought in the glory and the grandeur of its everlasting issues. The office of the presbyterate, which is also the office of the episcopate, is the ascension gift of the exalted Mediator, and the essential bond and preserver of his church. There is no other office in the church, or beyond it, equal in power, influence, and glory. This is the only bishopric recognised in scripture, or authorized thereby; the truly primitive and apostolical episcopacy, in and by which there is preserved, in the church of the living God, an unbroken succession of faithful heralds of the cross.

§ 2. Our position defined.

We are thus led to that truth, upon the demonstration of which we would now enter- the apostolicity of a presbyterian ministry, in contrariety to that which is prelatical. Not that we can hope to preclude captious doubt and cavilling objection, where the very nature of the subject admits not of absolute demonstration; but that we hope to produce sufficient evidence to warrant the most unwavering assurance of those who are willing to abide by the truth of God, to the exclusion of all human authority, tradition, and the will-worship and policy of men. We affirm, then, that presbyter-bishops are the only bishops recognised in the word of God; that they are empowered to discharge all the offices and functions of the christian ministry; that they succeed to all that authority, and to all those duties, which have been devolved, by the apostles, upon their successors in the ordinary and permanent ministry of the gospel; and that there is no other order of ministers, distinct from and superior to them, to whom is given the exclusive possession of all ecclesiastical authority. We therefore openly controvert and deny the truth of the position laid down by prelatists, that there are three original and essentially distinct orders in the ministry-bishops, presbyters, and deacons; each instituted by divine right, through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost; and each of them essential to the valid constitution of a church of Christ. This theory of ecclesiastical polity and of ministerial castes, is, we think, improperly denominated episcopacy, since episcopacy 'is allowed to be but an accident to the system," and since episcopacy, whether interpreted of the office, and thus meaning superintendence and oversight, or of the officer, who is called εлσ×олos or bishop, is claimed by presbyterians, and is fully asserted by them. We reject, therefore, prelacy, not episcopacy. We abjure modern and not primitive, diocesan and not scriptural episcopacy.

§ 3. Apostolicity claimed by presbyterians in all ages.

So strangely confident have the advocates of this system of prelacy become, through the great forbearance and silence of their opponents, that nothing is more common in the

1) Oxford Tracts, vol. i. p. 44. See also Lect. on Apos. Suc. Lect. i. 2) Clemens's Romanus, speaks of

presbyters who finished their duties in their episcopacy.