SECTION XXVII.

THE FIXED STATE, AND ORDINARY OFFICERS OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCHES.

Under the spiritual dispensation of the gospel, the extraordinary officers were the apostles, to confer gifts and teach by means of the inspiration of sugges tion; the evangelists, to plant and water churches; prophets, with occasional inspiration to explain the Scriptures.-The gifts are described, 1 Cor. xii. 28; Rom. xii. 6-8; Ephes. iv. 11, 12.-Officers qualified to administer ordinances, succeeded the extraordinary gifts, and churches, which were Christian societies, were substituted for the synagogues.—But two orders or kinds were adopted-presbyters, who were called also pastors and bishops, to teach, ordain, administer baptism and the eucharist, and to govern, and deacons to serve.—Among the presbyters, a bench of which was at first in every church, and but one presbytery in a society or city, there was one who presided, denominated poolws, angel, and by other names; yet the ordination was not different from that of the rest.—The first change was by a gradual transition into pastoral or parochial episcopacy, afterwards into diocesan.-This was established by the council of Nice, and at length produced papacy.

To acquire just views of the government of the churches of the apostles' days, it is proper to abandon all ideas of later changes, and retain only that knowledge, which Jewish believers had, prior to the descent of the Spirit upon them on the day of Pentecost.

The Mosaic dispensation terminated with the rending of the vail of the temple, Christ having been a minister of the circumcision to fulfil the law, the sacrifices of which were to be superseded by his own. The seventy disciples could not have been officers of the kingdom then to come; but, like those of the Baptist,

a Rom. xv. 8; vide Matt. xv. 24, xx. 28; Matt. x. 5. viii. 4, xxviii. 19.

THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT, &c.

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than whom "the least in the kingdom of heaven" was greater, (Matt. xi. 11,) they were only Jews. The twelve received a commission, just before the ascension, to be executed after the descent of the Spirit. Prior to such inspiration, they had neither the wisdom nor power requisite. It is no impeachment of the verity of the record to say, that the appointment of Matthias to the apostleship was equally unauthorised, as the desire of a temporal kingdom, Acts i. 6, both of which facts have been recorded. On the day of Pentecost, Peter saw, with a clearness to which he had been a stranger, the design of the death and of the exaltation of Christ, the nature of his kingdom, and the importance of the gift of the Spirit; (chap. ii. 4, 23, 4, 34, 5.) The apostles were themselves baptized by the Holy Ghost, and afterwards, by virtue of their commission, initiated believers with water, ver. 38, into a society in which all things were common, chap. iv. 32. Yet belonging to the stock of Israel, they attended at the temple and the synagogues, (chap. v. 42, vi. 9,) but commemorated, on its own day, the resurrection of Christ, in private assemblies. (Acts xx. 7. 1 Cor. xi. 20.) Their increase of numbers soon required the designation of seven men, of spiritual gifts, and wisdom, to serve tables. (Acts vi. 1-5.) Stephen exercised his gift of teaching, ver. 8, 10. Philip viii. 12. Ananias ix. 10, and other saints, when dispersed by persecution, also preached, (viii. 4,) and baptized, (ver. 16.) Saul, arrested, received the word of wisdom from Christ; his sight by the hands of Ananias, with initiation into the church by baptism, and an introduction to the apostles by Barnabas, a Levite of Cyprus. The restoration of Eneas and Tabitha, the visions of Cornelius and Peter, and the gift of tongues to the Gentiles at Cæsarea, were also suited to the dispensation of the Spirit. The enlargement of Peter, Paul, and Silas, and of all the apostles from prisons; the spiritual guidance of Philip, Peter, and especially of Paul in his travels; the gifts furnished by the hands of the apos

tles to their fellow laborers, the evangelists, and the churches; the impulses of the prophets; the justness, consistency, and purity of the doctrines, which were free from all mixture of error, and by immediate suggestion to the apostle, with their testimony, lives, and deaths; the judgments which fell on Ananias and Saphira, and Elymas, and other things; also, the power, influence, and opposition of the Pagan establishment; the learning, eloquence, and pride of the philosophers; the jealousy and hatred of the Pharisees and Sadducees, contrasted with the imbecility of the apostles, evince the fact and the necessity of a supernatural dispensation of the gospel.b

The prophets who came from Jerusalem, (Acts xi. 27,) whose inspiration was occasional, and those mentioned chap. xiii. 1, appear to have been inferior only to the apostles. (Eph. iii. 5.) By some of these the Holy Spirit directed Barnabas and Saul to be separated, not ordained, for they were inspired teachers, to preach the gospel in distant places; the former being a suitable companion for the apostle, in the island of his nativity. They went as Jews to the synagogues and families of their own nation, but in the power of the Spirit; whilst a different religion might have exposed them to persecution, and to the effects of that discrimination which Gallio humanely refused to recognize.

By the same Spirit the apostles were able to vindicate their own authority, and competent to vouch for those whom they took to their aid, in promulgating the gospel, and establishing societies. (2 Cor. viii. 23.) In the accomplishment of this work, ordination was no more required, than in the preaching of John and his disciples, or of the seventy sent forth by Christ; or in the case of him who cast out devils with the

b Vide Acts i. 8, ii. 33, viii. 15, 29, x. 19, 44, xi. 12, 15, xiii. 2, xv. 8, xvi. 6, xx. 28; 1 Thess. i. 5; Gal. iii. 3-5; 2 Cor. iii. 6-9; Heb. ii. 4.

master's approbation; or of Apollos, both before and after he became a Christian; no law of the former dispensation, nor custom in Israel, being against their preaching. A renunciation of their ancient customs might have offended the Jews to whom they came, and forfeited the national right of toleration.

When attending on the seventh-day worship, they prophesied and taught in the synagogues; on the Lord's day, they cultivated spiritual knowledge, commemorated his resurrection, and by degrees overcoming their Jewish prejudices, they prepared for that separation, which the destruction of Jerusalem

was soon to consummate.

As ordination was neither required nor expedient in planting the churches, so it is not affirmed of an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, or a teacher, but all referred to gifts; unless Timothy be an exception; and in making him such we have hesitated; for why and when the hands of the presbytery were laid on him; and whether Paul joined, the relations being in different epistles, and without reference to each other, do not discover. He may have been chosen and ordained a presbyter, and afterwards circumcised and gifted by Paul as a helping evangelist. Apollos preached as a Jew without ordination at Alexandria and Ephesus; and as a Christian at Corinth, before he had seen either an apostle, an evangelist, or a presbyter. The laying of hands on Paul and Barnabas, was after the apostleship of the former; not like the imposition by Peter and John, (Acts viii. 17,) for the conferring spiritual gifts as apostles, not after the manner of Paul, who imposed his hands on Timothy as an apostle. The attempts to locate Timothy and Titus, have been shown destitute of a support; so long as the residence of an apostle, or evangelist, at any place, became expedient, his authority was still general and extraordinary. As no preacher of the gospel can be shown to have been ordained by imposition of hands, except as a presbyter, and unto a particular

church, the contrary we have no right to assume against fact, utility, and Jewish examples. The three celebrated texts must now be tested.

Paul wrote his first epistle to the Corinthians before his second visit; that church being left, as all others were, in the first instance, without officers. They partook of the supper as other churches on every Lord's day, after the manner of a passover. That they had received spiritual gifts, appears; (chap. xii. 8.) They had seen an apostle in Paul, a prophet in Silvanus, a number of evangelists, and witnessed various gifts, as healing, and tongues: but however desirable the gifts, the apostle declared to them "a more excellent way;" for sanctifying influences change the soul, and prepare for heaven.

The terms evangelist, presbyter, pastor, bishop, and deacon, in their official sense, never occurred in this epistle. With respect to the terms, helps, avandeis, © and governments, xußpnes, they are not elsewhere found in the New Testament. Being abstract, and placed among extraordinary "gifts," expressly so denominated in verse 31, they could have signified nothing else to a people to whom had been dispensed only spiritual things. Nor does evidence exist, that any officer of a Christian church was ever called by either of those names. That interpretation which makes helps, deacons, and governments, lay-elders, is not only conjectural and gratuitous, but preposterous; for it places the order of deacons before that of presbyters.

Those "strangers" from Rome at the feast of Pentecost, who received the Holy Spirit, it may be presumed, carried home the gospel to the metropolis; and the opposition they experienced from their bre

c 1 Cor. xii. 28.—Πρωτον αποςόλους, δεύτερον προφηλας, τρίλον διδασκαλους, επειτα δυνάμεις, είπα, χαρισματα ιαματων, αντιλήψεις, γένη γλωσσων.

4 Τα πραγματα οικονομειν πνευματικα. Chrysostom in loc.