ground of the three ordinances just referred to, there is none with
regard to those institutions whose period appears to have been
determined at the moment of their origin.
The institution of Apostolic Ordination, which the Roman Catholic Church
holds to be of a permanent nature, we believe not to have been designed
to outlive the Apostles. We perceive no intimation in the various
instructions given them which can lead us to imagine that their office
was intended to be or could be bequeathed. They were chosen to be
witnesses of the circumstances of the life and death of Christ, and the
depositaries of miraculous powers after his ascension; but as the
assistance of the Holy Spirit, that is the power conferred from on high,
was only a temporary sanction, the peculiar office with which it was
connected could also be only temporary. The evidence which we possess
on this very important subject consists of the words of Christ himself,
addressed to his Apostles respecting their mission, their own incidental
observations, and the facts which ecclesiastical history presents. From
all these sources of evidence we derive our belief that the office of
_witnessing_, which is absolutely untransferrable, was the peculiar
office of the twelve Apostles; that they were especially qualified by it
for the task of preaching and establishing the new Gospel, and that to
enable them to do so with sufficient effect, among the many and great
difficulties which the state of the world then presented, the miraculous
gifts of the Spirit were granted to them, with power to impart them to
whomsoever they would, and that this miraculous power was coexistent
with the apostolic age,--with what is variously called 'the age,' 'the
kingdom of God,' 'the kingdom of Christ,' 'the kingdom of heaven;' that
is, from the descent of the Holy Spirit to the abolition of Judaism on
the overthrow of Jerusalem. We find no evidence of miracles after that
time which is at all to be compared with that on which we rely
respecting the apostolic gifts; none which allows us to hesitate in our
opinion, that with the apostles expired the power of communicating
miraculous privileges; and that on them alone were such privileges
immediately conferred. These gifts of the Spirit served as a Divine
sanction to their testimony, and were therefore coexistent with that
testimony; and the same evidence which recorded their testimony after
their death, recorded the Divine sanction likewise; and upon this broad
and immutable foundation is built the Christian faith, against which,
according to the Saviour's promise, no opposition has prevailed or can
prevail. When some who could not deny the peculiarity of his mission,
but would not admit his pre-eminent claims, supposed him to be John the
Baptist, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah or another of the prophets,
Simon Peter, who was not blinded by prejudice, and who believed for the
works' sake in opposition to the opinions of men, boldly declared him to
be 'the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus pronounced him
blessed, because he believed what the power of God made manifest, and
not what men declared; and promised that on such testimony as his should
the Gospel be established, so that no opposition should prevail against
it; and further declared that it should be in the power of Peter to
admit men into the privileges of the Gospel, and to have extensive
influence over their spiritual state. 'Blessed art thou, Simon; for
flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in
heaven. And I also say unto thee that thou art Peter (a rock,) and on
this rock I will build my church, and the gates of death shall not
prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of
heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven.' This promise was fulfilled. Peter bore testimony far and wide,
with all the zeal and energy by which he was characterized, to the life,
teachings and death of his divine master; and from this testimony, in
conjunction with that of his brethren, is derived the evidence on which
Christianity is received to this day. Peter had also pre-eminent power
in the infant Church, converting three thousand persons on the day of
Pentecost, and afterwards preaching, baptizing, and adding multitudes to
those who were pressing into the kingdom of God.
No record exists of any attempt on his part to delegate any portion of
his power; none of which could be transferred but such authority in the
Church as he possessed under the mode of church government which then
subsisted. That which constituted the chief glory of the Prince of the
Apostles belonged to him as the follower of Jesus and as an eminent
recipient of the gifts of the Spirit. It appears exceedingly improbable
that Peter ever was Bishop of Rome, though he suffered imprisonment and
perhaps martyrdom there. The authority of the Apostles was general, and
seems to have been exercised generally, instead of being fixed in any
one congregation. At all events it is clear that the Bishops of Rome did
not lay claim to any preeminence over the patriarchs of Constantinople,
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, (further than as they all claimed
precedence of one another on account of the dignity of their several
cities, and the superior wealth of their sees,) till the Arian
controversy afforded them various opportunities of extending their
power. When remonstrances were offered by the sixth Council of Carthage,
in A. D. 426, and by many other assemblies, against the encroachments of
the Bishops of Rome, the pleas which are now brought forward in support
of their claim to supremacy had never been heard of; and they were in
fact never adduced till many centuries after the death of Peter. It was
not till the beginning of the seventh century that the title of Pope was
appropriated by the Bishops of Rome; it being applied to all bishops at
first, and afterwards to those who held the larger sees, as when
Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, called Cyprian the Pope of Carthage. The
assumption of the title of Universal Bishop by John of Constantinople,
towards the end of the sixth century, was condemned by Gregory the
Great, then Bishop of Rome, as presumption and even blasphemy; and he
further showed his sense of the presumption by investing himself with
the humbler title of Servus Servorum Dei. Yet so soon after as A. D.
606, Boniface III. obtained of the Emperor Phocas that the Bishops of
Rome alone should henceforth call themselves Universal Bishops: the
claim being founded on the dignity of the city and the wealth of the
see, and not on the transmission of the apostolic office from Peter, of
which not the slightest hint appears to have been given till Leo
complained that the Council of Chalcedon had granted his claim to
preeminence on no better ground than the importance of the city where
he presided. Even he, however, had no thought of advancing pretensions
to infallibility, as the successor of an infallible Apostle; this
additional claim being reserved for Agatho, who, in 680, brought forward
the novel doctrine 'that the chair of Rome--never erred, nor can err in
any point;' and that 'all the constitutions of the Roman Church are to
be received as if they had been delivered by the divine voice of St
Peter.' So that there is an utter absence of proof that 'the Catholic or
Universal Church has been visibly continued through all ages in one
uniform faith, being guided and preserved from error in matters of faith
by the assistance of the Holy Spirit.' On the contrary, there is every
kind of evidence to prove that the supernatural influences of the Spirit
ceased with the close of the apostolic age; that divisions of various
kinds and degrees existed in the Christian Church, over which the
Bishops of Rome for five or six centuries exerted no pre-eminent
control, and which the decrees of Councils were of no avail to soothe
and unite. We therefore hold apostolic ordination to have been a
temporary institution, and at the time more universally understood to
be so than perhaps any other provision for the spread of the Gospel.
Of any such institution as a Church, permanent or temporary, established
by Christ, and distinct from the simple exhibition of his Gospel, we
find not the most remote hint in any records but those of the vain
imaginations of men. _A Church_ means literally an assemblage; and the
Church of Christ signifies, everywhere in the sacred writings, those who
believe in Christ. Where the term is limited, it signifies assemblages
of Christians in different places, as the Church at Corinth, the Church
at Ephesus, &c. By the universal Church it is impossible to understand
any thing but the total number of Christian believers: nor can we
conceive of any means by which it can be shown that the primitive
Christians understood otherwise, or that the term can admit of any other
interpretation. We hold, therefore, that the propositions we are about
to quote from the document to which we have before referred ('Roman
Catholic Principles,' &c.) are founded on an unauthorized and erroneous
conception of the nature of the Christian Church. 'The way or means by
which man may arrive at the knowledge of the mysteries of the Gospel'
are declared to be 'not by the reading of Scripture, interpreted
according to the private judgment of each disjunctive person or nation
in particular; but by an attention and submission to the voice of the
Catholic or Universal Church, established by Christ for the instruction
of all; spread for that end through all nations, and visibly continued
in the succession of pastors and people through all ages. From this
Church, guided in truth, and secured from error in matters of faith by
the promised assistance of the Holy Ghost, every one may learn the right
sense of the Scriptures, and such Christian mysteries and duties as are
necessary to salvation. This Church, thus established, thus spread, thus
continued, thus guided, in one uniform faith and subordination of
government, is that which is called the Roman Catholic Church: the
qualities just mentioned, unity, indeficiency, visibility, succession,
and universality, being evidently applicable to her. From the testimony
and authority of this Church it is that we receive the Scriptures, and
believe them to be the word of God; and as she can assuredly tell us
what particular book is the word of God, so she can, with the like
assurance, tell us also the true sense and meaning of it in controverted
points of faith; the same Spirit that wrote the Scriptures, directing
her to understand both them and all matters necessary to salvation.'
As we believe ourselves included in the universal Church, _i. e._ in the
number of Christian believers, we acknowledge no authority but that
which thus included us,--the authority of Christ himself: to no other
voice but his, as delivered in Scripture, do we listen with submission;
and to none do we commit the office of interpretation; believing that
God has given to every man the inalienable right and sufficient power to
ascertain for himself what doctrines and duties are necessary to
salvation. What the Romish Church may be which, so far from being
'universal' expressly assumes the power of guiding and informing
Christian believers, we profess not to understand, having received no
evidence of its origin and no attestation of its claims; but we know
that in the _Christian Church_ there has never been, since the apostolic
age, 'one uniform faith and subordination of government;' nor do we
believe that such subordination is designed by Providence, or that such
uniformity is compatible with the present nature of man, or essential to
his safety and peace. Believing that the Scriptures contain the word of
God, and that the natural faculties of man are its appropriate
interpreters, we dare not commit to others the task of receiving a
message which we know to be addressed immediately to ourselves;
especially as we are convinced that, since the apostolic age, no
peculiar gifts of wisdom or of tongues have been conferred on any man.
The same Spirit which dictated the Gospel we believe to pervade the
whole spiritual universe, giving wisdom liberally to all who seek it,
and enlightening those who do the will of God respecting the doctrine
which is of God.
Since the Roman Catholic Church cannot find a basis for its claims in
the Scriptures, those claims must be founded on the 'apostolical and
ecclesiastical traditions' which she requires her members 'most firmly
to admit and embrace.' The question between the Catholic and Protestant
Churches on this subject is,--what traditions are to be received and
what rejected; for the one Church would be as unwilling to receive all
that have been current, as the other to reject all that have been
substantiated. It is evident, as the Protestant Church admits, that the
Christians who were not converted by the Apostles themselves, and who
lived before the publication of the canonical Scriptures, could have had
no other foundation for their faith than tradition; and on the same
ground we establish our belief in the genuineness of the Scriptures; _i.
e._, we declare them canonical.
When we reject traditions therefore, it is not as traditions, but in
proportion to their evidence. If they appear inconsistent with the
sacred writings, incompatible with the convictions of reason, or
disagreeing with the circumstances of the age, we feel that the balance
of evidence is against them. If they be merely vague and
inconsequential, and not contradictory to each other or to any known
truth, we hold them loosely, without firm conviction and without
positive disbelief. If they be, not only consistent with, but
corroborative of ascertained truth, clear in the origin, and early and
extensively held, our faith in them is willing and steadfast. Of the
first class are those traditions which were pleaded before the second
Council of Nice, A. D. 787, on behalf of the worship of images, which we
reject on all the grounds mentioned above; viz. because they are
inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the sacred books; because
they are incompatible with the convictions of our reason, and because
they are perfectly irreconcileable with the practice of the Apostles and
the discipline of the primitive Church. Of the second class are those
which relate the various fate of the first followers of Christ, and
which we admit in the absence of all other evidence, though on such
slight grounds as to have no firm conviction of their truth. Of the
third class are those by which we receive the sacred books as genuine,
and which command belief from their universal prevalence, their strong
inherent probability, and perfect consonance with the contents of the
books themselves. It will be easily anticipated from what we have said,
that we reject those traditions which corroborate the claims of the
Roman Catholic Church to a special divine commission; since such
traditions are in opposition to what we recognize as the spirit of the
Gospel, and unsanctioned by the conduct of the Apostles, especially of
Peter. Rejecting these traditions, we hold the opinion suggested by the
record of the Acts of the Apostles, that their special commission
expired with themselves; that apostolical ordination was a temporary
institution; and that the special influence of the Holy Spirit was
designed to be a temporary sanction.
The church of England appears to us to merit the censure and even the
ridicule cast upon her by the Roman Catholic Church for the
inconsistency of her institutions with the principle on which she
professes to act,--the principle of the Reformation,--that the Bible
alone is the religion of Protestants. Catholics and protestants
Dissenter join in challenging her to produce from the Bible the grounds
of the practice, among others, of episcopal ordination; including, as it
does, the declaration of the regular transmission of the office, with
its peculiar gifts of the Spirit, from the times of St Peter till the
present day. Rejecting, as she does, the ecclesiastical traditions on
which the Catholics depend, and unable as she is to adduce authority
from the Scriptures to which Dissenters appeal, she has no alternative
but to own the practice ungrounded, or to adduce some third authority,
hitherto unheard of.
Some of the most objectionable forms of ordination for Christian
pastorship were, notwithstanding, retained by various denominations of
Dissenters long after their separation from the Church of England, and
are still partially held; but Unitarians have altogether relinquished
the conception that the teachers of the Gospel are peculiarly qualified
for their office otherwise than by their voluntary devotion to it, and
by those natural means of study, reflection and prayer which their duty
requires them strenuously to employ.
We conceive that the Church of England has been led into the
inconsistency mentioned above by conceiving in common with the
Catholics, and as we think erroneously, that the institutions of Church
government established in the apostolic age are a part of Christianity,
and therefore destined to be permanent. Her Church government is, it is
true, not the same, because it cannot, by possibility, be so, the lapse
of ages having wrought unavoidable changes; but this mutability, which
ought to prove to her the temporary nature of the institution, only
makes her cling the more eagerly to the points of resemblance which she
conceives to have been preserved between her own constitution and that
of the primitive Church; forgetting that such supposed resemblance is
immediately derived from that very Catholic Church whose superstitions
inspired her with so much horror at the Reformation. Whatever
resemblance the two Churches bear to the primitive Church in its
external offices, they bear in common.
This resemblance, however, is but slight. In the primitive Christian
Church, regulated by elders chosen from the people, and in no way
distinguished from them in rank or learning, and served by deacons,
whose office was to distribute the funds held by all in common, we can
scarcely recognize the original of the pompous establishments in which
religion is now believed to be preserved in its purity, till, on
examining the history, we trace the degrees by which spiritual
domination was secured. The most distinguished of the elders served the
office of moderator in the assemblies which met for the transaction of
business. In time, the office became permanent, and the 'constant
president' was allowed to appropriate the title of 'bishop,' which had
before been common to all the elders. When numbers increased so that
smaller congregations were separated from one larger, each colony had an
elder at its head, and the chief of the parent Church became a diocesan
bishop. Large country congregations were, however, empowered to choose
a complete set of officers for themselves, consisting of bishops,
elders, and deacons, and were independent of the city Churches, till the
Council held at Antioch A. D. 341 forbade country bishops to ordain
priests or deacons, and allowed them the power of choosing only the
inferior officers of the Church. The next step was to abolish the order
of country bishops; _country deans_ and _arch priests_ being
substituted. At length, synods were held, at which the bishops met as
deputies of the people, to communicate concerning affairs of common
interest, forgetting from time to time the character in which they
appeared, and venturing to make decrees by their own authority, and even
to claim a power of prescribing in matters of faith and discipline. The
principal bishop in a large district was employed by his brethren to
convoke these assemblies; and as the choice usually fell on the chief
officer of the metropolitan Church, the title of metropolitan bishop or
arch-bishop was applied to him; which term became common in the Church
after the year 430. The patriarchs were of a higher rank still; and
there were only five of them, belonging to the sees of Rome,
Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. They were not
called Primates till the time of Leo I. The ambition of the clergy found
extensive means of gratification in the changes made by Constantine, who
adapted the government of the Church to that of the State, which he had
newly divided and ordered. As the superior clergy grasped at greater
power, the inferior clergy pressed upon their steps; and we soon hear of
arch-presbyters and arch-deacons, and of the occasional union of the
offices of priest and deacon in the same individual. Thus did the
servants gradually become the masters of the Church; and thus, in four
centuries, was the constitution of Christian congregations so entirely
changed, that scarcely a shadow of their original institutions remained.
This brief detail (the truth of which is so well known that it is
needless to give as our authority every accredited ecclesiastical
history) affords the best argument for the temporary nature of the
institutions of Church government, and sanctions the declaration of
those who are charged by either Church with schism, that before they can
again be required to join the Establishment, that Establishment must be
reduced to the simplicity of government and discipline which
characterized the primitive church. The bishops must assume nothing
over their brethren, and be superior in no respect but in holiness; they
must be stewards of God, not given to lucre, but eminent in faith, in
temperance, in charity. The deacons must administer the common revenues
of the church for the benefit of those who have need, appropriating
nothing themselves nor suffering others to appropriate. The church
itself must be, in all its views and objects, not of this world; having
no respect of persons, not awarding to the man in goodly apparel a
better place than to the poor man in vile raiment, rejecting every
inducement to the usurpation of secular power, and leaving to the
conscience of every man, as Peter referred to the conscience of Ananias,
the obligation of contributing to the common revenue. 'While the land
remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was not the price
in thine own power?' is not the language of ecclesiastical tax-gatherers
in the present day: and till all contributions to the churches become
strictly voluntary, till the churches abjure all temporal authority, and
free their discipline and ritual from the encroachments of spiritual
tyranny and the defilements of superstition, neither the one nor the
other can advance any claim to spiritual allegiance, and men who dissent
from both may hold themselves innocent of the sin of schism.