The Presbyterian review and religious journal

ART. 1.-1. The Prelatical Doctrine of the Apostolical Succession Examined, and the Protestant Ministry Defended against the Assumptions of Popery and High Churchism. In a Series of Lectures. By THOMAS SMYTH, D.D., Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, Charleston, S. C. Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1841.

2. Presbytery, and not Prelacy, the Scriptural and Primitive Policy. By THOMAS SMYTH, D.D. Boston, 1843.

THE doctrine of the apostolical succession, as maintained by Puseyites, Papists, and High Church Prelatists, may be explained in one sentence. According to these parties, prelates occupy the office, and possess the powers of the apostles. That office they inherit, those powers they derive, by means of consecration from their immediate predecessors, and these again from their predecessors, and so on in an unbroken line of succession up to the first prelates, who were consecrated by the apostles, and through that consecration received all the powers which the apostles themselves received from Christ. None but prelates so consecrated, it is affirmed, can perform any episcopal function, nor consequently ordain ministers, and therefore every minister (so called) who has not been ordained by a prelate, who was himself consecrated in

VOL. XVII. NO. I.

the manner we have stated above, neither is nor can be a minister of Christ, neither has nor can have any right to preach the gospel, any power to administer the sacraments, or commission to perform any other function of the holy ministry. It is further maintained by those who profess the doctrine of the apostolical succession, that such prelates as are described above, and ministers ordained by them, are essential to the very being of a church, and consequently where such prelates and ministers do not exist, (as for example they do not among ourselves), there is no church of Christ at all. It is, moreover, affirmed, that where there is no church, there can be no salvation, and as a necessary consequence, there can be no salvation in any but a prelatical communion. this account, these Papists, Puseyites, and High Church Prelatists maintain, that if Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Wesleyans, and, in short, any man of any denomination but their own is saved at all, it must be by some means not revealed in Scripture, and not provided for in the covenant of grace; and thus, by one sweeping conclusion, they cast us all out to what they term the uncovenanted mercies of God'—an expression, as subversive in words of the whole doctrinal system, as in spirit it is irreconcileable with the moral precepts of the gospel. As if in very wantonness to make our condition still more desperate, and our salvation still more impossible, they maintain, that the sacraments are the appointed channels, instruments, or means of salvation. But then only a prelate and his curates can administer the sacraments. Consequently only those who receive the sacraments at the hands of such pastors have any prospect whatever of being saved. Such is the doctrine of the apostolical succession, as maintained by Papists, English Puseyites, and Scottish Prelatists.

Now, as we have to do with men who have steeled their hearts `against the touch of charity and mercy, it is of no avail, nor indeed have we time or space, to show how contrary to the spirit of the gospel is the system which leads to such antichristian consequences. These men would only smile at such a line of observation, and tell us we have no more right to complain of their conduct in thus shutting us out of God's covenanted mercy, than have the heathen to complain of us, when we tell them, as of course we do, that if they continue in their heathenism they cannot be saved. If we told them that by such a reply they necessarily denied that we have any faith in Christ, any gifts of the Spirit, any fruits of grace (a thing which can be fully determined only by God, especially when, so far as man can see, we have as many and as clear evidences of faith and grace as themselves)-they answer, that while they do not deny that we have as much of the appearance of

Divine grace as themselves, and perhaps more, (this even the Oxford Tracts acknowledge), still our ministers have lost the apostolical succession, and on this single and sole account we have lost all claims upon the covenanted mercies of God,' and consequently have no more Scriptural grounds of salvation than the worshippers of Juggernaut. Such being the parties we have to do with, the only way in which we can destroy their pretensions to exclusive salvation, is by disproving their exclusive claim to the apostolical succession; for this, as we have seen, is the only ground on which they rest all their pretensions. And happily this is no very difficult task, as we now proceed to show, as shortly and simply as

we can.

It is evident from Scripture, that the apostleship was but a temporary office, required by and suited to the circumstances of the church and the times; and farther, as a historical fact, that the apostles appointed no successors to their apostolic office. This will be seen very clearly from the few following remarks:-And, 1st, Only Christ himself appointed apostles to their office, and that directly and immediately, and not through the agency of any human beings. Every one knows that the twelve apostles were appointed personally by Christ himself. The apostles evidently knew that they had no commission or power to appoint apostles. When, therefore, they thought it necessary that one should be appointed to the place of Judas, they did not attempt to appoint him themselves. On the contrary, they referred the whole matter to Christ-a thing they never did in regard to deacons or elders; and when He elected. Matthias, the other apostles did not attempt, by laying on of hands, or by any of the other forms by which they appointed other officers, to make him an apostle. They recognised him at once as an apostle, in virtue of his having been chosen by Christ himself, and as such as much an apostle as any one of themselves, (Acts i. 24-26.) When, afterwards, Paul was made an apostle, it was not by the other apostles, but by Christ personally, (Acts ix.) When, therefore, some of his enemies and detractors began to question his apostleship, alleging apparently that he was not an apostle, because he had received his office at the hands, not of Christ, but of men, he repels the allegation, affirming, that he was an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father,' (Gal. i. 1.) From these instances, then, it is perfectly evident, that apostles were appointed to their office only by Christ himself, and that directly, immediately, personally, and by open, visible, and palpable manifestation of his own presence, and not, as in the case of all other officers, through the agency of apostles, or any other class of men.

It is perfectly true there are in Scripture a few others who

are called, in the language in which the New Testament was written, by the name of apostles, or, as the term is correctly rendered, even by the Prelatic translators of our valued version, messengers; and modern Prelatists, of no mean pretensions to learning and logic, are actually found capable of alleging, that these messengers' were apostles, in the same sense with the twelve. A very few remarks, however, will suffice to show, that these men did not hold the apostolic office, but were simply messengers,' as they are justly called. In writing to the Philippians, for example, (ii. 25), Paul calls Epaphroditus their messenger,' (amoros); and writing to the Corinthians, (2d Epistle, viii. 23), he speaks of certain persons, who had accompanied Titus to Corinth, as the messengers (apostles) of the churches.' Now that Epaphroditus, and these other parties, were not really apostles in the same sense in which Paul, and Peter, and John, were apostles; that they were nothing more than simply messengers, as they are called in our version, will be made manifest from the following observations:

Paul was in the habit of requiring of the Gentile churches to make collections for the support of their poorer brethren in Judea, exposed as these were, through persecution, to the spoiling of their goods, (1 Cor. xvi. 1-4.) From the scrupulously delicate feelings of the apostle, he would not take charge of that money himself, but required each church to appoint some one or more of their own number to see it administered, (1 Cor. xvi. 3; 2 Cor. viii. 19;) and the parties so appointed are the persons who are called themessengers of the churches,' in 2 Cor. viii. 23; (on which Prelatists found their argument in favour of humanly appointed apostles, who, they allege, were the first bishops.) And what else were they, pray, or by what other name ought they to be called, but messengers'? It shows certainly, in somewhat of a ludicrous light, the desperate shifts to which some men can be driven, in defence of a favourite system, which they neither have the power to establish nor the grace to renounce, when well-informed Prelatists can, with a grave countenance, convert these bearers of money-bags into bonâ fide apostles of Christ. We are not of those who love to press analogies or to hunt for resemblances, otherwise we might perchance establish a rather startling relationship between these money-carriers and our modern prelates. However, as we are rather in a conceding mood, we shall not churlishly refuse to acknowledge, that our present prelates are the successors of the money apostles, alias messengers,' of the New Testament churches; only, and we trust no one will complain that we should insist upon the resemblance being complete, we shall just demand one condition, viz. that our modern money apostles, like their pro

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The Presbyterian review and religious journal, Том 17