ing to the Church at Thessalonica, urges them "to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord,”1—(the very expression one would think it natural for him to have selected to designate their lay ruling elders, if they had any) — and yet he immediately describes the persons intended by him as being those who "admonish you," [vovlεrovvras — nouthetountas], a word which here, as in sevral other passages, seems clearly to imply the labor of the Pastor and Spiritual guide. 3 2 5. Again, the Presbyterian theory of this text conflicts with records made, and directions specially given by the New Testament in regard to the right method of ruling in the Church. That ruling must respect either the admission, dismission, or discipline of members; the choice of officers; or the transaction of current business. But we have already seen that, by precept and example, the New Testament demands this action directly from the Church itself, in its entire male membership. Particularly clear is this in the matter of disciplinethe gravest and most solemn subject with which the ruling of the Church can ever have to do- of which Christ himself said "tell it unto the Church." 4 How can this direction be complied with if a Session of Elders 5 steps in between the Church and the offender, and rules him out, (or in); with no direct action—perhaps even no knowledge of the Church itself in the premises? And how, in the absence of any other passage claimed to teach directly any such doctrine of Ruling Elders, can it be right to interpret this passagewhich will bear a natural interpretation that will harmonize with the entire record—in such a manner as to nullify all those texts which 1 1 Thess. v: 12 2 Compare Acts xx: 31, "I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears; " 1 Cor. iv: 14, "As my dear children I warn you; "Col. i: 28, "Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man," etc.; where the same Greek word, translated in the text above 'admonish,' is used to describe the tenderest and solemnest function of the Pastor's office. “ The persons indicated by κοπιῶντας, προϊσταμένους, and νουθετοῦντας, are the same; viz: the TрεoẞÚTερol oг Èníσкоñol."—Alford. Com. 1 Thess. v: 12. Vol. iii. p. 265. 3 See pages 9, and 40-43. 4 Matt. xviii : 17. 5 The assumption sometimes made by Presbyterians that Christ's command to "tell it unto the Church," means "tell it to the Session of Ruling Elders," (see "Message to Ruling Elders," p. 8, etc.) is beneath refutation, and can only amaze the mind which reflects upon it, and inquires how, with such principles of interpretation, are the Papists, and Swedenborgians, or even the Mormons, to be logically foreclosed from any conclusions their fancy may incline them to attach to any passage of the Bible! place the responsibility and privilege of ruling, distinctly upon the Church as a body? 6. But it becomes to the last degree improbable, that this text was divinely intended to be the corner-stone of a special lay office in every Church, of a species of Elder whose sole business should be ruling, when we remember that the New Testament, in its mention of the qualifications of Elders, says of them as a class, and without exception, that they must hold fast the faithful word as they have been taught, that they may be able by sound doctrine, both to exhort, and to convince the gainsayers.'1 It is strange that all elders should be required thus to be 'apt to teach,' if a portion of them were intended to ignore teaching altogether, and indeed to get the peculiarity of their office from so doing; while it is incredible that a separate office so easy to be confounded with that of the teaching Elder, and yet so important to be distinguished from it, could have existed in the Apostolic Church, while no reference whatever is made to it by the Holy Spirit, even when the general subject of the class, of which this is claimed to be a species, is under its consideration! We conclude, then, that this text fails utterly to announce, to hint, or even to be in any manner, however remote, consistent with, the theory of a lay Ruling Eldership in the Church of Christ; or of any office of Ruling Elder distinct from the ordinary Elder, who labors 'in the word and doctrine,' and is the Pastor, or Bishop of the Church. And since this text falls, all the other texts which we have considered, and whose explanation waits to be determined by it, fall also to the ground, and leave the Presbyterian theory on this subject without the support of a single passage from the New Testament. 8 As to the testimony of antiquity, Vitringa,2 Rothe, and Neander, have fairly shown that the few passages usually quoted by Presbyterians from the Fathers, in proof of the existence of a lay Ruling Eldership in the early Church, will not warrant the interpretation which they put upon them; and that the office originated in the mind of John Calvin.5 The same concession has been honorably made by Rev. J. P. 1 Tit. i: 9. 3 Die Anfange, etc. i: 221. 2 De Synag. Vet. Lib. ii. Chap. 2. 5 The passage of the Institutes by which Calvin first suggested the office- so say Gieseler, Davidson, and others-is the following: "Duo autem sunt quæ perpetuo manent: gubernatio, et cura pauperum. Gubernatores fuisse existimo seniores e plebe delectos, qui censuræ morum, et exercendæ disciplinæ una cum Episcopis præessent. Neque enim secus interpretari Wilson, D. D., a learned and eminent Presbyterian in this country, who published twenty-one articles in the Monthly Christian Spectator (A. D. 1823-1828), which were afterwards enlarged into an elaborate work, the object of which was to disprove the antiquity of the lay Eldership; to dislodge it from any imagined proofs in the patristic writings; and to show how, at Geneva, in 1541, Calvin—as the best thing which could be done to meet an exigency which had arisen then, and there,1-devised and brought into operation the system of lay Eldership, and afterward attempted to justify it from the Bible. To the research and reasoning employed by him, nothing needs to be added, for they do the work thoroughly and forever; so that it is difficult to see how those who master the facts of his essay, can resist their force, and continue to uphold the office whose pretensions to any Divine origin, or authority, it utterly demolishes. Indeed the ablest Presbyterians are accustomed to rest the claim of the office upon expediency, rather than upon Divine enactment, or Biblical warrant; taking the ground that "having constituted the Church a distinct society, he [Christ] thereby gave it the right to govern itself, queas quod dicit (Rom. xii: 8): 'Qui præest, id faciat in sollicitudine.' Habuit igitur ab initio unaquæque Ecclesia suum senatum, conscriptum ex viris piis, gravibus et sanctis penes quem erat illa, de qua postea loquemur, jurisdictio in corrigendis vitiis. Porro ejusmodi ordinem non unius sæculi fuisse, experientia ipsa declarat. Est igitur et hoc gubernationis munus sæculis omnibus necessarium."-"Institutes." Lib. iv. cap. iii. sec. 8. (Ed. Tholuck, 1846) P 218. Dr. Davidson says: "The office now termed the Ruling Eldership was invented by Calvin After creating it, he naturally enough endeavored to procure Scripture proof in its favor Dr King quotes the usual passages from Cyprian, Origen, and Hilary, to show that these fathers were acquainted with this office; but the proof will not suffice to convince an honest inquirer. Surely if he had known the thorough examination to which these quotations have been subjected by Rothe and Neander, he would have allowed them to sleep undisturbed, rather than affix interpretations to them which they refuse to bear. We repeat our assertion that Calvin created that office. Vitringa demolished it with learned and unanswerable arguments Let the advocates of it refute him if they be able."-Ecclesiastical Polity of New Test." p 193. 1 Calvin himself says in regard to it, after its establishment: -"Nunc habemus qualecunque Presbyterorum judicium, et formam disciplinæ qualem ferebat temperum infirmitas.". Epist. 54. 2 Dr. Wilson sums up his argument, as follows-"It has now fairly resulted from this investigation, that a special form of ecclesiastical government was adopted by the Genevese at the Reformation; not because it was found, by Scriptural precept or example, to have been the original Apostolic scheme; but because the nearest approach to the true one, which the peculiar circumstances of the Canton, and the exigencies of the times, would admit. . . . Had Calvin justified the expedient by the necessity of the case, he would have betrayed his design, and prevented others from the benefit of his example; but he gave ease to his conscience, and plausibility to his conduct, by seeking a defence from the Scriptures."-Monthly Christian Spectator. Vol x. (1828.) p. 64. according to the general principles revealed in his word;" and, if it be objected against this that it opens the way for "human devices," replying that "if Christ has given his Church the power of self-government, what the Church does in the exercise of that power - if consistent with his revealed will1- has as much his sanction as it well could have under any theory of Church government." Upon this question of the expediency of the government of the Church by lay ruling Elders, we shall have something to say hereafter, only here remarking that the acceptance of such a vital change in the method of Church ruling which Christ suggested, and the Apostles arranged, and the early Churches practiced, avowedly on the ground of simple expediency, seems to us a procedure opening a very wide logical door for error in other directions, which its advocates must speedily hasten to shut, if pressed by the hypothesis of 'expediency' in regard to other doctrines and 'practices. This danger has, indeed, been seen by some, and has led them to throw out this claim of expediency altogether, and the more earnestly to return to the Bible in the attempt to engraft the office upon some passage there.1 Dr. Breckinridge and Dr. Thornwell have recently made a new effort to adjust the question, by taking the ground that the Presbyterian Ruling 1 Is a Session of Ruling Elders coming between "the Church" and duties Scripturally enjoined upon it from the lips of Christ himself, "consistent with his revealed will?" 2 Princeton Review, (1843.) Vol. xv. pp. 319-332. 3 See p 260. 4 Well say the authors of the "Divine Right of Church Government: wherein it is proved that the Presbyterian Government may lay the only lawful claim to a Divine Right," etc.; " If mere prudence be counted once a sufficient foundation for a distinct kind of Church officer, we shall open a door for Church officers at pleasure; then welcome commissioners and committee men, etc , yea, then let us return to the vomit, and resume prelates, deacons, archdeacons, chancellors, officials, etc, for Church officers. And where shall we stop? Who but Christ Jesus himself can establish new officers in his Church?... Certainly if the Scriptures lay not before us grounds more than prudential for the Ruling Elder, it were better never to have mere Ruling Elders in the Church."-(Ed New York, 1844.) p. 114. So the author of a series of articles in the Presbyterian, on the "Rights of Ruling Elders," urges, with great force, the fact that the office must rest upon the ground "either of human expediency, or divine warrant If upon the former, then it is a human device, etc... If the Ruling Elder is not a Scriptural presbyter,' and his office a Divine institution, then of course we claim for him no part of the powers of ordination, or any other presbyterial power; it would be manifestly inconsistent to accord him any, and in this view our constitution has done what it had no right to do, viz: added to the appointments of God, as to the government of the Church." So, in speaking of Acts xiv: 23, this writer affirms: "if these [Elders ordained in every Church] were all preaching Elders, it is fatal to Presbyterianism;" and adds again -"if the Ruling Elder be not a Scriptural Presbyter, but a mere layman - an officer of human appointment-why say so, and let him be shorn of all his assumed presbyterial powers," etc.See the Presbyterian, (Nos. 614-626.) of which generic 2 Elder' is the 'Presbyter' of the New Testament office the Preaching Elder constitutes a species; whence they argue that Ruling Elders ought to be admitted to take part in ordination with the Preaching Elders, in the "laying on of the hands of the Presbytery,"1 etc. This view, which certainly has the advantage of looking more Scriptural than that of Calvin,-yet which is radically destructive of the whole Presbyterian polity-has been earnestly assaulted by Rev. Dr. Smyth, in the Princeton Review for 1860, at the length of more than one hundred and thirty octavo pages.2 It may reasonably be presumed that the end of the discussion is not yet. Meanwhile it is difficult to see how, on either theory, are to be explained the practical facts that this Elder- who is specially commissioned to rule in the Church, whether of the same class with the Preaching Elder, or not in reality never does rule in the judicatories of the Church, but must always yield the claim to the mere Preaching Elder; and that, when he is declared worthy of "double maintenance" 4 if he can "rule well," the Ruling Elder is never supported by the Church at all, but only the Preaching Elder! In order to understand the position of our Pilgrim Fathers on this 1 "Knowledge of God, subjectively considered." pp. 629, 641, and Southern Presbyterian Review, (1859), p. 615. Dr. Adger ("Inaugural Discourse on Church History," etc., in Southern Pres. Rev. (1859), p. 171, and Rev. Dr. Thompson, late of Buffalo, (in his opening discourse before the New School General Assembly of 1859, as reported in the New York Observer) are understood to take substantially the same ground with Drs. Breckinridge and Thornwell. 2 Princeton Review, Vol. xxxii. pp. 185-236, 449-472, 702-758. Dr. Smyth thinks he proves that this new theory (1) destroys the argument for Presbyterianism; (2) destroys the ministry as a distinct order; (3) undermines the argument for the truth of Christianity, (4) destroys the Ruling Eldership; and (5) destroys the Deaconship. 3 "The Pastor of the congregation shall always be the moderator of the session."-"Book," Chap ix. sec. 3. So the moderator of the Synods, and of the General Assembly must preach, and, of course, must be a preaching Elder.-"Book." Chap xi. sec 5, and Chap. xii. sec. 7. 4 This is the conceded force of the dirλñs riμñs džiovσ¤wσav of 1 Tim. v: 17. "It is evident that not merely honor, but recompense, is here in question."-Alford. Com. 1 Tim v 17. Vol. iii. p 335. "It is honor, but an honor which finds its expression in giving, as verse 18 proves."- Olshausen (Kendrick's Ed.) in loco. Vol. vi. p. 135. "Qui vero ita occupati erant, minus vacabant opificio, et rei familiari, et digni erant compensatione."-Bengel. "Gnomon." in loco. p 832 "Videtur autem duplicem honorem dicere et alimenta, quæ et ipsa illis cum honore dantur, ut Regibus tributa."— Grotius. in loco. Vol iii. p. 975 "Duplici, id est copioso honore, sub quo etiam comprehendit alimenta, aliaque subsidia ad vitam sustentandam, munusque quod gerunt recte administrandum, necessaria, ut qui multos hospitio excipere debeant (1 Tim. iii: 2) "-Brennius. in loco. Fol. 88. |