Forbes on Article XXIII: Of Ministering in the Congregation

THE Article here treats of what is technically called Mission a. That the clergy should have such mission is affirmed, not only by implication in such terms as describe them as stewards and ambassadors, but also

• Vide S. Parian, Ep. i. 12, Oxf. Tr. 325, 320.

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in so many terms by St. Paul b, where, in a beautiful anti-climax, lie describes the order whereby men arrive at righteousness and salvation. First comes the mis sion of the preachers ; then the actual preaching of the Gospel ; then the faith of the hearers ; then their wor ship and calling upon God ; lastly, salvation in this life from the disease of sin, hereafter from death and corruption in glory everlasting. “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” ” How shall they call on Him in whom they have not be lieved ? and how shall they believe on Him of whom they have not heard ? and how shall they hear without a preacher ? and how shall they preach unless they be sent ? (aTToo-TdXcoai) except they be Apostles ?”

Now mission is divided into two kinds, that which comes immediately and proximately from God, and which needs the authentication of miracles and signs ; and that which comes mediately from Him, through those to whom the power of mission is given by the institution of Christ. Just as in the old Jewish Church these two powers existed side by side in the respective institutions of the prophetic and priestly offices, so in the primitive Church we recognise the same. The Epistle to the Corinthians is full of allusions to the supernatural consequences which ensued on the gift of the Holy Ghost, while in the Pastoral Epistles — those to Timothy and Titus, we have evidence of the forma tion of the ordinary hierarchy. Of this hierarchy the t, the mission, is the key-note, referring us b Rom. x. 14.

back to Him, Who is the Apostle and High Priest of our Profession, as receiving mission from the Father, for the purpose of transmitting it fresh to the twelve, in whom He lodged all power and authority. The title of Apostle was not confined to the twelve. Barnabas and Paul are first assumed into the holy band to the violation of the mystic number of twelve completed by Matthias. Epaphroditus c is termed by St. Paul ” my brother, and companion in labour, and fellow-soldier, but your apostle,” (aTrocrroXo^). In the Corinthians, not only does he recognise the existence of Apostles — first in their capacity of recipients of supernatural gifts — ” He gave some Apostles/’ but we find certain of his brethren recognised as ” Apostles of Churches, a glory of Christ,” (aTrocrroXot eKKkiqa-iMV, Soga Xpia- TOV,) where their office and dignity is happily recog nised in one pregnant sentence. Again, in Horn. xvi. 7, Andronicus and Junia are said to be ” of note among the Apostles.”

Meanwhile the discontent of the Hellenistic Jews, who thought that their widows were neglected in the distribution of alms, had evoked the institution of the diaconate, and wherever the Apostles established a Church, they ordained men who in the Jewish com munities were called ” elders,” in the Gentile Churches t( overseers.’* The first title was one associated with notions of great dignity among the Jews, as there were elders in the Sanhedrin, assessors to the chief priests and scribes, and every synagogue had a chief or pre-

« Phil. ii. 25.

428 ARTICLE XX1IT.

sident. The title ‘overseer’ or ‘bishop/ occurs in the Alexandrian version in the sense of an ecclesiastical and civil officer. Thus there are three orders in the Church, — apostles, overseers or elders, and deacons.

But only a part of the Apostolic office was to be transmitted, and such part as was transmitted had to be regulated. It was impossible that the solidarity of their power should continue, and there were certain prophetical powers which in the purpose of God and in the nature of things must cease. Accordingly before the close of the Canon of Scripture, we find a certain monarchical power establishing itself in each Church. St. James exercised what we should now call episcopal jurisdiction over the city of Jerusalem; and the seven Churches of Asia have each an officer termed an angel. Timothy and Titus, from acting as Apostolic delegates of St. Paul, become diocesan bishops, the first of Ephe- sus, the second of Gortyna in Crete.

In the early quarrels and insubordination, e.g. of Novatians, the line taken, was not to dispute the office of the episcopate, but to set up an anti-bishop.

This state of things is exactly represented in the Epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians, which be longs to the end of the first century. He recognises three orders : 1. the Apostles, who, in prospect of con tention arising about the office of ruling, appointed rulers, and ordained for the future after their death other tried men who should hold their office of ap pointing such persons ; 2. presbyters or overseers ; and 3. deacons. He also quotes the threefold ministry as

a type and parallel of the hierarchy of the old law. By the time of St. Ignatius, we find the title of Apostle dropped, out of reverence to those who first bore it ; the name of Overseer apportioned to the apostolic office, and thus separated from the presbyteral; in this way the three orders are still maintained in their integral distinction. ISTor is this the mere local usage of the Churches of Asia Minor. We have distinct evi dence, at the end of the second century, that this hier archical constitution prevailed universally, without any known exception, throughout the whole of Christen dom. ” The episcopate was a whole in which each en joys possession in solidarity.” All over the earth, from India to Spain, the episcopate was a definite organ ization. It is impossible to account for this hier archical uniformity without pre-supposing an original Divine institution. If we consider the difficulty of the transmission of intelligence, the rarity of the occasions of communication, the deep-rooted ethnical peculiarities of the varying tribes which were converted to Chris tianity, we can in no way account for it save on the supposition of the threefold ministry being a part of the original constitution of the Christian Church.

No new form could thus have established itself uni versally without exciting some opposition ; of that oppo sition there is no trace in any of the earlier records. In the fifth century, indeed, we find the existence of opposition on the part of Aerius and Vigilantius, but this opposition actually tests the universality of the organization. It was left to the religious exigencies

of the foreign Reformers to frame, first, a theory of the non-necessity of bishops; and then, to erect the platform of their polity without reference to them. By some, indeed, the new constitution was justified only on the plea of absolute necessity. Calvin re gretted this imagined necessity.

The gravity of the matter consists in this. That while we are not in any way to limit the mere}’ of God, and therefore can understand that in excep tional circumstances, exceptional conditions of things may be allowed; yet, in the course of the guidance of the Church, it is a truth universally accepted by all who have any pretensions to be sound theologians, that the validity of certain rites depends upon Epi scopal ordination, i.e. upon the Apostolical Succession, and as a result of the character of Holy Order, none but one so appointed can bind or loose in the Name of Christ, or consecrate His Body. As a matter of fact, in the bodies who have not apostolic mission, the be lief in both these functions has disappeared, and that disappearance is not the least terrible result of the schisms of the sixteenth century. ” If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness !”