Lay preaching : a divinely-appointed part of Christian ministry

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Fitzgerald, John Purcell
Lay preaching

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LAY PREACHING,

LAY PREACHING:

A Diuinely-appointed part of Christian H/Iinistry.

JOHN PURCELL FITZGERALD, M.A.

"Having therefore gifts, differing according to the grace given to us.'

EOMAKS XII. 6.

" The manifestation of the Spieit is given to every man to profit withal.'

1 CORIXTHIAXS XII. 7.

LOXDOX :
WILLIAM HUNT AXD COMPANY

HOLT.KS STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE ;
AXD ALDINE CHAMBERS, PATERNOSTER ROW.

IPSWICH : WTT.TJAM HLT^T, TAYEEN STEEET.
1873.

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PREFACE.

The writer of these pages would desire to take what
he believes is a just middle course between the two
extremes that so agitate our devout and earnest
Christians. During the last forty years, we have
seen the revival of the highest ministerial claims —
Sacerdotalism, as we must call it — a principle of
entire siihjugation hij people to the Clergy. The other
extreme may be called Brethrenism. That is to say,
a Christian republic, in which all believers are
equal, not only in regard to spiritual privileges, but
almost equal in point of Church official power. A
system under which the precept, " Obey them that
have the rule over you," appears impracticable, for
who is to **obey" if none have authority to com-
mand, or all may command equally?

vi PREFACE.

It is my object to prove that the ruling Ministers
of Churches ought to encourage, and commission,
those of their Church who have ''gifts" of preach-
ing and teaching, to preach and teach the Gospel
to the ignorant around them ; and that such ministry
was an indispensable part of the Apostolic Church's
''order."

» * * r t./» A Vyv 1.« • , .

CONTENTS,

PART I.

IS LAY PREACHING ALLOWABLE?

The Roman and Greek Churclies? — The Church of
England — Article XXV.— Not positively forbidding all
Lay Ministry— The Canons of 1603— The Scotch (Pres-
byterian) Church : its Elders, but not Evangelists —
Wesley and Whitefield revive the order of Lay Preachers
— Lay Evangelism an integral part of Christian Ministry
— The danger and injury of its past neglect stated —
Delay of the Gospel — Serious Consequences of forbid-
ding Lay Preaching stated — Wesley compelled to make
use of it in 1740 — At first opposed to it — Number
of Lay Preachers in the various Methodist bodies —
The religious state of England when Wesley began—
National Immorality — No Gospel in Church Pulpits —
State of Scotland as to Religion — General conchision —
The religious state of Wales — Howell Harris, the Lay
Evangelist — Ought Wesley, Whitefield, and Harris, to
have forborne thus to Work ? — General Conclusion 1 — 16

CONTENTS.

PART II.
SCRIPTURE PROOFS.

PAGE

General character of this Dispensation (Jer. xxxi.)
— Unordained or Lay Ministry under the later Jewish
Church — As seen in the Apostles' case — No positive
verbal injunctions found in the New Testament for Lay
Preaching — neither for many other important Ordinances
— deemed essential — The first Preachers of the Gospel
at Pentecost : almost all Unordained — Women amongst
them — Objection that no miracles can attend or give
authority to Lay Preaching noio — Answer that the
Spirit was given for the whole of this Dispensation —
"Greater Works" were to follow the Spirit's out-
pouring upon Pentecost than during our Lord's Mission
— Works of Conversion did follow then, and seventeen
centuries later, through the preaching of "Unordained,"
as well as " Ordained " preachers . . 19 — 25

PAET in.

SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY— continued.

The scattered Church, after Stephen's martyrdom,
mostly "unordained" Christians, preach the Word —
Philip, a great preacher, not ordained to preach — What
Preaching is — Philip, though unordained, must have
been sanctioned by the Apostles — and was certainly by
the Spirit — Philip's Preaching in Samaria — evidently
honoured by the Spirit — The preaching of the scattered

CONTENTS.

PAGE

(unordained) believers divinely directed — Philip sent
by the Spirit to the Ethiopian — Recognised afterwards
as an Evangelist — Objection that Stephen's persecution
made Lay Preaching an exceptional work — answered
by reference to Ephes. iv. — Evangelist, a gift, separate
from that of Pastor, Elder, Deacon, etc. — Bad conse-
quences of neglecting these distinctions . . 29 — 38

PART IV.

SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY— continued.
THE EPISTLES.

Number and nature of the Epistles — List of "Spiritual
Gifts, " as stated in the Epistles to Rome and Corinth —
Many of the "gifts" not miraculous, but common to
the Church in all ages, such as "exhortation" — The
Apostles' precept neglected — Prophesying : its double
signification — The practice of believers at Rome when
St. Paul was first imprisoned — Most of the brethren
at Rome "preached Christ" — Paul did not forbid it,
but rejoiced — Notices of believers' teaching and ministry
in other Epistles ..... 41 — 50

PART V.
THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN,

May women minister in the Gospels — St. Paul's pro-
hibitions— Qualified by himself in same chapter — They
may pray or prophecy veiled — The day of Pentecost —

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Said to be no precedent — General precepts to all be-
lievers to exhort, etc. — To the Colossians and Homana
— What it is to "exhort" and "speak" under the
Spirit's influence — Special precept to Hebrew Chris-
tians— Paul's notice of women labouring in the Gospel
— Wliat their labours were — Other women named —
Phoebe, a deaconness — Priscilla — Other women — Euodia
and Syntyche — Fellow labourers with Clement — The
woman of Samaria — Success of her ministry — Greater
than that of the Seventy — Mary Magdalene after the
Resurrection — The other women — Modern female teach-
ers of the Gospel : Mrs. Stevens, Mrs. Daniells, Mrs.
Pry — Conclusion ..... 54— G7

PART VI.

THE REASONS WHY LAY PREACHING AND TEACHING
FELL INTO DISUSE. MINISTERIAL RANK.

True dignity of ministers — in Scripture — False dig-
nities brought in: Bingham's " Christian Antiquities "
— The numerous ranks of the Clergy gradually intro-
duced— Ignatius's exaggerated views of Bishops — Wild
departure from the Apostle's doctrine — Which standard
is to be followed ? — Danger of Ignatius's teaching —
Clement of Pvome, his exaggerated view of oVjedience to
Pastors — Clement's false analogy between the Jewish
Priesthood and the Christian Ministry — Clement's views
of the "Laity," how different from those of St. Paul —
Submission of believers not only to Pastors, but to all
who ministered — Why did not St. Paul command ab-
solute submission to himself ? . . . 71 — 83

CONTENTS.

PART VI.— (2)

CAUSES WHICH LED TO STOP LAY MINISTRY.

PRIESTHOOD.

REMAINS OF PRIESTHOOD IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

PAGE.

The Theory of Priesthood traceable in part to Clement
of Rome ; but he does not call Ministers, Priests — He
compares Christian Ordinances to Jewish ones — His
first letter to Corinthians —He assigns no Ministry to
Laymen— Scripture as to the one Sacrifice for Sin —
The Eucharist turned into a new Sacrifice — Ignatius
— Tertullian — The Roman Catholic view — The People
under the Priest — Error of retaining Priestly Titles in
the Prayer-book — Cranmer knew the danger — He bor-
rowed from the Romish Ordinal — Error in the Minis-
terial Commission in Ordination Service — "Visitation
of the Sick " Office : its error and danger — Endeavours
to defend these Priestly assumptions — Cranmer's and
Parker's reasons for retaining these Services — Elizabeth
restores objectionable parts of Edward's first Prayer-
book — Large body of Irish Laymen in the Disestablished
Church demanding a "Revision" of Prayer-book —
Their Protest ..... 87—110

PART vn.

PRESENT MEANS OF GOSPEL INSTRUCTION IN OUR GREAT
CITIES INADEQUATE. NEED OF LAY PREACHING.

Ordained Ministers not sufficient to teach our large
Populations — Evangelists specially needed— London : its

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Population — Number of the Clergy in London — Num-
ber of Nonconformist Ministers — Number of Church
and Chapel Sittings — Vast multitudes left practically
unevangelized — Is the teaching generally given in
Church and Chapel ejQfective? — Improper accommodation
given to the poor — Just excuse for masses of the poor
not attending — City Missionaries — and Scripture Head-
ers, visitors — Number of Families probably visited —
Open-air Preachers — Theatre Preachings— Manchester :
its Population — Number of Clergy and Nonconformist
Ministers — Number of Sittings in Church or Chapel —
City Missionaries, Readers, etc, — Number of People
left untaught — Advantage of City Missionaries — Still
the Spiritual Destitution remains — to be met by a fresh
and well-ordered Evangelism . . . 113 — 131

PART vm.

APPEAL TO THE GENTRY.

Reflections suggested by the sight of our people —
Extract from the Times Newspaper of Oct. 12th, 1871,
as to necessity and Scriptural duty of Lay Preaching —
Final appeal to the Gentry — Great importance of their
coming forward ..... 135 — 147

PART I.

Lay Preaching : Is it Allowable ?

L^Y r^I^B^CHINO,

PART L

Lay Preaching : Is it Allowable ?

May unordained men preach the Gospel to the
ignorant and neglected, or may they publicly exhort
and arouse nominal professors of religion ?

These are serious questions. By a large number
of Episcopal clergymen such preaching is deemed
unauthorized and sinful. It is a thrusting of oneself
into "the priest's office." It is even to become a
follower of "Korah, Dathan, and Abiram." Those
who thus act, shall "perish in the gainsaying of
Corah." (Jude.) According to this theory not only
unordained laymen, but men who have been ordained
by a "Presbytery" and the ministers. Thus the
ministers of almost all "Reformation" Churches are
equally unwarranted intruders. Their Presbyterian
"orders" are not valid. On the other hand, these

LAY PREACHING

same Episcopal clergy are equally deemed ** unlawful
intruders" by the Eoman Catholic Church: their
''orders" are null and void; and by parity of rea-
soning, the English clergyman is amongst Korah's
company.

I know that by many eminent Roman Catholic
writers, the validity of the Anglican ''orders" is
admitted : nevertheless, every Englishman who se-
cedes to the Eomish priesthood is obliged to be
"ordained" afresh; so that his previous ordination
goes for nothing.

8uch is the view taken by the Roman and Greek
Churches. All preaching or evangelism is by them
limited to ordained priests, except when, on certain
occasions, an order of "preaching friars" has been
sent out upon some special mission. These friars and
monks were not necessarily ordained by bishops.
Thus, in former days, they preached ^"crusades"
against Mahometans in Palestine, or "crusades"
against the Waldensian "heretics" in Europe, who
threw off the Papacy. So now we believe that monks
and friars, as lay-brothers, are sent out on missions to
Roman Catholics, in order to stir up their faith in
the truths of their religion.

As to Church of EngLmd teaching on this subject
(lay preaching), the twenty-third Article forbids "any
one to take upon him the office of public preaching,
or of administering the Sacraments in the congre-

IS IT ALLOWABLE 1

gation, before lie be lawfully called and sent forth,"
etc., etc. By the ''congregation," the people assem-
bling in the parish church are- the "congregation"
intended. When these "Articles" were first drawn
up, no religious meetings but those of the Established
Church were permitted. Any one who studies the
"canons" that were put forth under James I. (in
1604 A.D.), will see the full vigour of the exclusive
Church system then set up.

By the Canons of 1603, all meetings for prayer
and teaching that are dissentient from the Established
Church, are classed and condemned with those of
" Popish recusants." (See the fourteen first Canons.)
It is a disgrace to our National Church that such
odious laws as these should be still retained even m
7ia7}ie. In practice we know that they are repealed,
and even become illegal ; but they stand, like the old
rusted instruments of torture in the Tower of London,
to show how far a Frotestant Church could tread in
the persecuting steps of that Eome from which it
had separated. Nowhere, indeed, does the twenty-
third Article distinctly forbid all preaching on all
occasions by laymen. No provision is however made
for such preaching, and certainly all custom and
tradition have been against it for 300 years. The
clergyman has been viewed as the depositary of all
the "gifts" of teaching, preaching, and pastorship.
All has been "headship" and autocracy. The peo-

LAY PREACH I XG :

pie, or body, have been stunted and decrepid through
inaction.

In the *' Church of Scotland," and in many foreign
Protestant Churches, ''elders" are appointed to a
subordinate ministry; and so in our ''Congrega-
tional" Churches, "deacons" are set apart for much
the same purpose : but in all these cases, these
"elders" and "deacons" only do their work within
the Church to which they belong. We hear of no
order of "evangelists," or preachers, as sent out by
any of these Churches into the desert places of sin
around them, until from a.d. 1739 and onwards.

Wesley and Whitefield were then (by the Divine
mercy) raised up in England ; Howell Harris, the
noble lay evangelist, was raised up in Wales ; then
the brothers Haldane (fifty years later) were raised
up in Scotland. Of the mighty effects that followed
the ministry of these apostolic men, I shall have
much to say afterwards. All who have read Eng-
land's religious history during the last 150 years,
know that Wesley's mission was as much carried out
by unordained preachers as by regularly appointed
ministers. Howell Harris was unordained throughout
his life. The brothers Haldane, during their first and
most successful itinerating journej^s of preaching
through Scotland, were unordained, though after-
wards one of them was set apart as pastor of a
church. (See their ably-written and deeply-interest-

IS IT ALLOWABLE?

ing ''Lives," by Alexander Haldane, Esq., seventh
edition.)

But we turn to Holy Scripture, in the New Tes-
tament,— to the teaching and practice of Apostles,^ as
guided by "the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven."
Does Holy Scripture forbid or command the preach-
ing and teaching of Diyln-e truth by men not set
apart, by imposition of hands, to continued ministry
and pastorship ?

We maintain that, from the whole tenour of the
New Testament, all men whose hearts have heen filled
icith a Saviour's love, and whose lives correspond to their
faith, are called, according to their alility and opportunitij,
to speah of that Saviour to the ignorant and neglected
around them. We maintain that believers may law-
fully thus preach and teach without giving up their
worldly callings, or being set apart for the ministry
alone. We maintain that this "lay preaching" or
teaching became, in the Apostolic Chui'ches, an in-
tegral part of ministry : that the constant forbidding
and hindering of lay preaching, in after ages, has
been a constant " quenching of the Spirit : " that it
has incalculably delayed the Gospel's progress amidst
our fellow men. We say "incalculably delayed;"
for it is said of Infinite Wisdom Himself, that " He
could do not many mighty works there, because of
their unbelief." (Matt. xiii. 58.) His Spirit has
also declared that man's unbelief and man's unfaith-

LA Y PREACHING

fulness do hinder and delay the promised mercy.
(See Isaiah xlviii. 18.) "0 that thou hadst hearkened
to MY commandments ! then had thy peace been as a
river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea :
thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring
of thy bowels as the gravel thereof; his name should
not have been cut off nor destroyed from before Me."
By this cold system we maintain that thousands of
loving hearts have been checked in their efforts to
bless mankind. And, lastly, that we cannot, and
ought not, to expect great religious movements by
the Spirit of God upon our peoples, while we neglect
to make use of the means set before us : even the
setting to work ly people as well as hij ministers for the
salvation of souls, — ^people or laymen, as well as minis-
ters,— to work for the saving of souls, through the use
of any gift of teaching or preaching which laymen
may possess.

Before closing these remarks, I would state the
issue to which we are brought by those who object
to all lay preaching, or who deem it irregular and
dangerous. We do not deny the faults into which
many lay preachers fall. These are easily observed.
We speak of the abstract right and duty of laymen
to preach and teach. The theory of those who deny
that obligation amounts to this : However wide-spread
be irreligion and wickedness around you, it is not for
an unordained gentleman, tradesman, or labourer, to

IS IT ALLOWABLE?

lift up a public warning to those '* perishing for lack
of knowledge." It is rather the Divine will (for to
this awful conclusion we must come) that men should
perish in sin, unwarned and unevangelized, rather
than that unordained men should " help to save
them ! " Before a man adopts that terrible con-
clusion, he may well, upon his knee before God, look
into that eternity to which his own soul, as well as
the souls of his fellow-creatures, are drawing so near.
He will then, I believe, stay His hand from forbid-
ding'' lay preaching."

Before adopting so terrible an alternative, let us
also calmly judge of the great religious movement
brought about in this country by certain known
causes. "We may say, with all soberness, that the
great ''Revival" of spiritual religion throughout
England, Wales, and Scotland, which followed Wes-
ley's, Whitefield's, and their companions' preaching,
would never have occurred icithout their evangelism.
Would the Established clergy, or the Nonconformists
of that day, have ever roused England with a living
Gospel ? And if they could not do it, who could but
the great Methodist preachers ? And lay preaching
was an essential instrument in this holy war.

If lay preaching be such open disobedience of
Divine law, how comes it that such untold spiritual
good has crowned, and is crowning the disobedient ?
The Gospel pervades all England. To what other

10 LA Y PREACHING :

cause (mediately) can we ascribe it, except to tlie true
one: viz., this ** Second Eeformation " (as we may-
call it) in England, brought about by those martyr
spirits who braved all persecution in order to hold
fast the life of spiritual religion in the soul, — the only
religion worthy of its name ?

The vindication of "lay preaching" as a necessarij
part of Christian ministry has been long since un-
answerably made. In 1742 Wesley set it forth in
his own clear and common-sense way. Fifty years
later it was also most convincingly defended by the
brothers Haldane when they set out in 1793 on their
preaching journeys through Scotland. Wesley him-
self was at first opposeil to lay preaching ; such was
the force of his early habits and education. But
necessity, humanity, and love, broke through ''the
traditions of men." AVe have his description of his
early views upon the subject given by his able bio-
grapher, the Eev. L. Pyerman. Through Wesley's
teaching, a young servant, named Thomas Markfield,
was brought to believe with adoring love ''the truth
as it is in Jesus." He appears to have travelled for
a time as a servant with Charles Wesley. Being left
for a time in London, and having begun to preach
with great power and blessing, we read that "John
Wesley hurried back to London for the purpose of
stopping him." Wesley's venerable mother, however,
met her son upon his arrival with these memorable

IS IT ALLOWABLE? 11

words: ''John, take care what you do with respect
to that young man. He is as surely called of God to
preach as you arc!'''' Thenceforwards Markfield, the
servant, became one of the most successful evangelists ;
but he was never ''^ ordaineiV by the ''lajdng on of
hands." And how from the first lay preaching of
John Cormick and Markfield has the spring swelled
into a mighty river of spiritual good to countless souls !
In England alone we learn that there are 11,804 lay
preachers in the present year ministering throughout
the great Methodist body. In foreign lands, and at
missionary stations, the number of lay workers, in-
cluding lay preachers, is 20,000. Amongst the Primi-
tive Methodists at home and abroad were reckoned,
in 1868, about 14,000 lay preachers. (See Preface
to "Wesley's Life and Times." YoL i., pp. 3—6.)
Peflect, then, what was the religious state of our
country 130 years ago ? England, Wales, and Scot-
land were, for the most part, sunk in vice, ignorance,
and nominal religion. We need not dwell long uj)on
a fact so often proved and described. Fielding's
disgusting novels were approved by masses of our
gentry. Drunkenness and gross swearing* were as
common amongst them as they are now avoided and
condemned. Duels were fought upon many trifling
provocations. Sunday Schools had not then been
thought of for the children of our poorer brethren.
Greenwich and Bartholomew fairs were more like

12 LAY PRE A CHING :

heathen orgies than the rational amusement of a
Christian people; while cock-fighting, bear-baiting,
and other cruel sports, delighted the rich as well as
the poor. Hogarth's celebrated series of pictures
fitly illustrated the vice amongst our higher, and the
brutality amongst our poorer classes.

From English and Scotch pulpits a cold morality was
preached ; but it was not the blessed source of holy
love to God by souls freely forgiven and reconciled.
The Gospel had departed from our country. Nominal
Protestantism, and nominal Churchmanship, had
wrapt our people in their deadly sleep. By the few
clergymen and Nonconformists who were earnest in
their religion, historical " evidences " for the truth of
our Lord's Diyeste advent on earth, and defences of
His Divinity, were frequent subjects of pulpit teach-
ing. This was to counteract the wide-spread unbelief
in the great verities of Revelation which had set in,
and which, like thick black clouds, had so hidden the
sun's light from our land.

Brought up in childhood amongst those who called
all " Methodists " fanatics, and a spiritual renewal of
the soul, or ''conversion to God," as madness, I can
well recollect the current epithet which well-meaning
people attached to a man whose heart and life became
awakened to devoted piety: "He is bitten ^* (as by
the venom of a mad animal). " I trust no child of
mine toill ever he so hitten.^^ As for Scotland, we may

IS IT ALLO WABLE ? 13

judge of the state of the Established Church by
one fact. It was a matter of debate in the General
Assembly (in 1796) ^^ivhether it ivas a duty to send the
Gospel to the heathen V As to the Scotch clergy in
general, ''many of them were genuine Socinians ;
many of them were ignorant of theology as a system,
and utterly careless about the merit of any creed or
confession. ... To deliver a Gospel sermon, or preach
to the heart and conscience of a dying sinner, was as
completely beyond their power as to speak in the
language of angels." (See ^^ Lives of the Haldanes,"
pp. 122, 123.) From the same work we learn that,
in some cases, communicants who had been shut out
from Church-membership on account of some gross
'imrnoxoXiiy^ paid money as commutation of their "pen-
ance," or exclusion, and were thus reinstated ! So
had the once stern anti-Popish Church of Knox
relapsed into the extreme of Popish ''indulgences."

What was the state of Wales and the Welsh
Established Church when Howell Harris, an unor-
dained man, braved all persecution in order to evan-
gelize it ? The writer of " Wesley's Life and Times "
thus draws the picture of Wales at that time : " The
morals of the Welsh were deplorably corrupt. In
this respect there was no difference between rich and
poor, ministers and people. Gluttony, drunkenness,
and licentiousness were prevalent. In the pulpits of
parish churches the name of Christ was scarcely

14 LAY PEE A CHING.

ever uttered," etc. (Vol. i., p. 220, of ''Life and
Times of "Wesley.") The established clergy, had
they been enlightened teachers of the Gospel, were
ignorant of the language in which most of the Welsh
people then spoke. In the pulpit, therefore, those
ministers were unto their flocks (as St. Paul says)
"barbarians." Such a state of things was in part
the result of the " Act of Uniformity." By that Act
all religious freedom and zeal had been fettered
down, like the stump of Nebuchadnezzar's tree,
" with a band of brass and iron." Let any one who
contrasts the Wales of to-day — its chapels everywhere
teeming with congregations, and the religious life of
that people, — let any one contrast these with the
Wales of 1739 : will he deny that the ministry of an
unordained man, Howell Harris, called down most
signally the Divine sanction and blessing ?

All this may be sullenly admitted as a fact, as
cause and eff'ect ; and yet shall we be told that
Wesley, Whitefield, and Harris, ought to have prayed,
waited, and lelieved that sufficient zealous clergymen
ivould he soon raised up to do all the good work ? The
answer is obvious : "We are not to put off or neglect
the doing of known duties because other men neglect
to do theirs. We are not to wait idly because others
are idle. Besides this, we deny the proposition that
the established clergy are the only DiviNELY-appointed
preachers of the Gospel in our kingdom. And we

IS IT ALLO WA BLE ? 1 5

moreover say that the most practical way of stirring
up the established clergy to the doing of their duty,
was for Wesley and Whitefield, Harris and the
Haldanes, to prosecute their great mission. THis,
their theory, was fully justified by what followed."
If we would stir up others to do good, let us begin
by doing it vigorously ourselves. Through the efi'orts
of these great men, hundreds of the established clergy
were aroused to live and teach the pure Gospel faith
throughout England, Wales, and Scotland; and to
bring on such a *' revival " of Gospel truth in Church
pulpits, as had never been in our country since the
days of Charles II. TJien three thousand godly
ministers were found who gave up their "livings,"
rather than shipwreck their consciences by subscribing
the " Act of Uniformity."

But we cannot stop here. The living stream that
gushed forth in the middle of last century, went on
widening and deepening itself, till it broke out into
all the grand missionary rivers which now flow to
various heathen lands. Five great English Missionary
Societies alone received, during the years 1867 — 1868,
the sum of more than half a million for sending Christ's
Gospel to the heathen ; while nine smaller societies
raised the total to £605,101. Scotland spent, during
the same year, £58,017 for heathen missions; thus
raising the total to £663,118 for the preached Word.
(See the '< Christian Year Book," 1868.) On the

16 LAY PREACHING.

other hand, during the year 1870-71, the British and
Foreign Bible Society received more than £217,000
for the purposes of printing in all languages, and
circulating through all nations, the Scriptures of
God. During its sixty-seventh year, that Society
has issued 3,900,000 copies (in whole or in part) of
the inspired Word; and since its formation in 1803,
the Society has printed 63,299,738 copies. *'This
time it shall be said, 'What hath God wrought?' "

PART 11.

Scripture Testimony as to Lay Preaching.

PART II.

Scripture Testimony as to Lay Preacliing.

(1) The general character of this Christian disjjeji-
safion, as well as of that ichich ijreceded, it, is the
mutual teaching of our neighbour in the truth of
God by all who know that truth. Jeremiah fore-
tells of the coming restoration of Israel to the favour
of God and to their own land : '' They shall no more
teach every man his neighbour, and every man his
brother, saying, Know ye the Lord." (Jer. xxxi.)
These words assume that before that glorious day
men ought to teach their neighbour, if their neigh-
bour is ignorant; and that if we do not teach our
ignorant neighbour, we are plainly disobeying a
DiYiNE command.

(2) Under the later Jewish period, and during
the time of our Divine Loed's first advent, no
"ordination" by laying on of hands was given to
the public teachers of the Law of God, such as the
scribes and doctors of whom we so often read in

20 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY AS

the New Testament: ''The scribes and the Phari-
sees sit in Moses' seat." (Matt. xvi. 1.) In a special
way, and by virtue of their office, the consecrated
"priests" were to' be teachers of the people: "The
priests' lips should keep knowledge, and they should
seek knowledge at his mouth; for he is the mes-
senger (angel) of the Loed of hosts." (Mai. ii. 9,
and Deut. xxxiii.)

But teaching was not limited to priests. "The
scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat : " and
rigid as was that Mosaic code, it is certain that in
all the synagogue meetings, or meetings of pro-
fessed worshippers of God, any Jew might exhort
his brethren out of the Law and Prophets, he being
without outward commission to do so through the
imposition of hands by elders or rulers of syna-
gogues. Throughout His blessed life, the Lord of
glory was never arraigned on a charge of violating
Church order, because He taught in their synagogues
without outward induction by men's hands to such
ministry. I find this fact adduced by John Wesley,
as a vindication of lay preaching under the Gospel.
Thus, then, liberty of teaching (or preaching) was
given under the law to every devout man. "Brethren,
if any of you have any word of exhortation, say on,"
was the invitation given to Paul and Barnabas in the
synagogue of Antioch. (Acts xiii.) Have unordained
ministers, then, under the glorious Gospel, less

TO LAY PREACHING.

21

liberty to exhort and expound Scripture {i.e., preach)
than Jews under the law ? I see no doubt but that
the Apostles' Chureh-meetings, and the rulers and
"elders" who governed them, were modelled 'on
the Jewish synagogue. Liberty to utter prayer
before the congregation, and to "prophecy," — that
is, to ' ' speak unto exhortation and edification and
comfort," — was allowed to all in due subordination.
(1 Cor. xiv.) But we shall see this point more and
more fully proved when we come to the Apostles'
time.

To the New Testament, to the words of our Lord
and of His apostles, and to the practice of those
apostles, we must go for fullest information and
for decision. Positive commands, in so many words,
to unordained brethren to preach, are certainly
not to he found in Scripture. Neither have we plain
commands that single elders or bishops should
continue to preside over large districts or dioceses,
tiiat infants should be baptized, or that the people of
a Church should elect and dismiss their ministers, etc.
No positive verbal command exists for changing the
Jewish Sabbath to the first day of the week. And so
in very many other cases. Take only one more :
it is perhaps to us the most remarkable. Binding '
as we feel the duty of giving the Bible to all men,
we can find no positive command in that Divine
book for so doing. We feel however this duty to be

SCRIPTURE TL'STIJIOXY AS

paramount. We are "to do good to all men;" and
this is truly to do them good.

The first great preachers of the Word ivere mostly un-
ordained men and ivomen. On the day of Pentecost
we read that the 120 believers, "with the women"
(named in chapter!, of the "Acts"), were "filled
with the Holy Ghost ; " and that they spoke in other
tongues, "as the Spieit gave them utterance," the
"wonderful works of God." (Acts ii. 11.) What
"works " could these be ? Not the mechanism of the
Btars, nor of "the laws of nature ; " but of the won-
derful work of God : a Divine Saviour becoming
man ; obeying, dying, rising, for man ; ascending to
send the Spieit down upon men ; and thus to prove
incontestably to man that He fulfilled from heaven
the promise which He had made on earth.

All these "servants and handmaidens" on whom
the Spieit fell, thus became so far preachers of " the
Word." Through their preaching, as much or far
more than by Peter's explanation of the Scriptures,
was the multitude who came together, arrested,
alarmed, and "goaded to the heart." Women as
well as men here spoke or preached, "as the Spieit
gave them utterance." How many they were in
number, we are not told. A few only of the holy
women are named in Luke viii., as followers of
Cheist; and a few only are named in Acts i. : "With
the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus." Such

TO LAY PREACHIXG. 23

is their description. It will be however said, '* Pente-
cost was a time of miracle : all was then extra-
ordinary. No precedent can thence be drawn, as it
regards our present state, nor any fair argument for
the preaching of the Gospel by unordained men.
Those who spoke on Pentecost were inspired by
God. Their utterance was an irresistible outflow of
Divine truth. We have to do with uninspired teachers.
We depend on human learning, — great knowledge of
Scripture, — in order to make a man fit to preach."

We answer, We know that we have no miracles to
help our unordained preachers, yet, if it should please
God in His mercy to enable many unordained men
to preach His Word in days past, or on one day, "in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power," to the
enlightening and conversion of thousands, — if God
be pleased to fill ''unlettered" as well as ''unordained"
men, with heavenly zeal and power to persuade and
awaken the ungodly, how can we say that the gifts of
Pentecost are all withdrawn, or that no extraordinary
powers of preaching and teaching shall return, or
have returned ? I believe that the Pentecostal out-
pouring was intended to last throughout this whole
dispensation. "They shall prophecy w those dai/s.^^
I have myself heard during the last year, rough
Scotch fishermen, who toil the six weekly days upon
the sea, preach with a power that I scarcely ever felt
in the ministry of any college-educated or ordained

24 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY AS

minister. I could only wish that our Manchester
brethren of the factories and coal-pits could hear
those "sons of thunder" speak. And was not ex-
traordinary power, as great as that of Pentecost,
given, when George Whitefield preached to 18,000
and 20,000 souls at one time ; or when John Cennick,
Thomas Marsfield, and Howell Harris, all unordained
men, preached to thousands, and turned thousands
from the ''wrath to come," to find their heaven in
Chuist? Were not these " miracles of grace " in the
last century ?

If, then, we be told that Pentecost is no precedent,
for it was a time of miracle, I confess that " speak-
ing with foreign tongues " (as on that day), is to my
mind a less miracle than the conversion of ungodly men
through these fishermen' s preaching. It is against human
calculation, and against the traditional teaching which
learned ministers give us. The greatest of miracles
is wrought through such preaching. It is a miracle
without and above mere ''signs and wonders:" the
salvation of souls hj means of rough uneducated teachers.

Upon Pentecost, 3,000 souls were raised to an
heavenly life; and 1,700 years afterwards, by the
same Spirit, and through the preaching of the same
Gospel, thousands on thousands more rose from
their death of sin and formalism in England, Scot-
land, and North America. And "greater" were
these latter "works" of conversion than those of

TO LAY PREACHIXG.

Pentecost. Wesley, Whitefield, and Harris, could
work no outward " signs and wonders," such as often
followed or went before the Pentecostal preachings.
It was God's mighty power, more gloriously set forth
to save souls by the Word of His Gospel, without
tvorhs of miracle. Not a blind man received eye-sight,
nor a lame man strength; but the "foolishness of
prenching,''* and that often by men "unlearned,"
" was the instrument of saving them that believed."
Upon one day George Whitefield, after one out-door
preaching, received a thousand letters from persons
who were anxiously inquiiing, "What must I do to
be saved ? **

PART III.

Scripture Testimony as to Lay Preaching
— continued.

PART III.

Scripture Testimony as to Lay Preaching
— continued.

The second great success of the preaching of believers un-
ordained, and not set apart for that exclusive work of
ministry, was after the martyrdom of Stephen. In
Acts viii. 1, we read, that "there was a great per-
secution of the Church that was at Jerusalem ; and
they were all (the Church) scattered abroad through-
out the regions of Judsea and Samaria, except the
Apostles." (Ver. 1.) And in ver. 4, ''They that
were scattered abroad went every where preaching
the Word.''^ This scattered ''multitude" must have
embraced many thousand men and women. From
Acts V. 4, we learn that in Jerusalem alone the
believers amounted to five thousand: i.e., that all
these went forth preaching the Word, the text de-
clares. By this we suppose that, according to his
or her ability and "spiritual gift," each believer
spoke to or exhorted those whom they met upon

30 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY AS

their journey. ** Preaching" does not consist in a
man's addressing a crowd, no more than in a loud,
long, or elaborate appeal. Paul ** preached" when
he conversed with a few women at the river side,
when he explained Scripture within the synagogue
of Antioch, or when he poured forth his appeal to
the crowd upon Mars' Hill. (Acts xvii.) So, again,
Philip '* preached " Jesus to his one hearer the
Eunuch. (Acts viii. 35.) We have no right to
suppose that before they left Jerusalem, these two
or three thousand believers were set apart by impo-
sition of hands, or what we call '^ ordination." Most
certain it is that the ivomen, who must have formed
a large part of the company, were not so ordained,
and perhaps half of the number were women. There
is no evidence for it. In regard to one of their
number, Philip by name, greater success attended
his "preaching of Christ" to the Samaritans than
seems to have followed that of the Apostles at any
given place or time, except on Pentecost. (Acts viii.
5 — 8.) ''The people with one accord gave heed
unto the things that Philip spake, hearing and seeing
the miracles which he did." But we know (from
Acts vi.) that Philip had not been ''ordained" to
preach the Gospel. With six other brethren was he
appointed to minister to poor widows. Whereas
"we will give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry
of the Word," said the Apostles. This limited office.

TO LA Y PREACHING. 31

however, of almsgiving for bodily wants, was not to
check the outflowing of Philip's loving heart towards
men's souls. Philip, when he had done his daily
work (if it was daily), went forth *' preaching the
Word." '' Samaria" was to receive the message of
life next to Judaea. In Acts i., the Apostles were
told, *' Ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jeru-
salem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto
the uttermost part of the earth." Yet those eleven
Apostles were not personally nor literally to be the
first witnesses in Samaria: Philip was to do that
work. Is it not plain that by so acting Philip be-
lieved himself to be a partaker in the Apostles' great
commission, ** Preach the good tidings to every
creature " ? According to our traditional views,
Philip took a great responsibility upon himself, pre-
suming to go before the Apostles, — " running," as we
should say, ''before he was sent." How can we
explain such daring ^^ irregularity,'*^ such breach of
" Church order " (as we hear it often called), for the
unordained to strike boldly into an unevangelized
mass? We answer: Veilt^'s preaching must have been
sanctioned, approved, and commended, if not expressly
commanded. This we prove unanswerably (1) by the
marvels of Divine power and blessing which followed
his preaching ; unaccountable, all of them, if he was
sinning. (2) Never do we find Philip blamed or
discouraged by the Apostles. They had no jealous

32 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY AS

fear that Ms ''preaching" would be more successful
than their own : nor do we find any of the two or
three thousand brethren who tried to ''preach the
Word" reproved or silenced, as we doubtless should
now discourage young and inexperienced brethren.
According to the after notions of " Church order,"
all such preaching would be deemed "raw" and
dangerous. "Preaching is a holy science," it is said :
"only to be ventured on after long years of study
and of prayer."

To whose practice then shall we look as a pattern ?
Shall it be to that of Apostles, who were Divinely
guided in all their great movements ; and who, thus
guided, approved this preaching by the scattered
brethren ? Or shall we take as our pattern the prac-
tice of the Churches, as we have seen it to be in
subsequent ages ?

(2) I have here taken the case of Philip^as being
sufficient in itself to justify the 2,000 or 3,000 unor-
dained evangelists. But the "Word of God does thus
fully describe it (turn to Acts xi. 19—21): "They
which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that
arose about Stephen, travelled as far as Phenice, and
Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the Word to none but
unto the Jews only. And the hand of the Lord was
with them : and a great numler believed, and turned unto the
Lord." Here then, if ever, was there a clear Divine
sanction and approval of unordained man's efforts

TO LAY PREACHING. 33

to honour the Saviour and to save souls: "The
hand of the Lord," His life-giving Spirit, was "with
them," — these scattered, travelling preachers. These
unordained men, mostly poor men, ignorant and un-
learned in worldly "letters" or "education," as
the Fishermen Peter and John manifestly were.
(Acts iv. 6.)

Whether many others of the scattered brethren
worked miracles, as did Philip, and thus helped for-
ward their own preaching "by signs following," we
are not told. Whether they wrought miracles or not,
our position remains unchanged : viz., the Divine
approval of unordained preachers of the Gospel. And
if such unordained preaching was sanctioned, and we
must say appomted, then why is it not sanctioned and
appointed for our times, for all times, — for all times
in which men are " enemies to God by wicked works,"
and need to be taught the way of life ?

Moreover, to remove all doubt as to the Divine
approval of Philip and the others unordained to
evangelistic work, we must go on to the sequel of his
history, in Acts viii. 26. An angel of God is sent to
commission him to "preach Christ" to an Ethiopian
officer, aud through that officer to send the "glad
tidings" to the north of Africa. "The Spirit said
unto Philip, Go, join thyself to his chariot." (Yerse
29.) " Philip opened his mouth, .... and began at
the same Scripture, and preached unto him Jesus."

D

34 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY AS

(Verse 35.) Moreover, if we pass on to Acts xxi. 8,
we shall find this holy, zealous preacher termed by
the Holy Spirit " Philip the Evangelist," — the title
plainly of a recognized office-bearer in the Church.

Still it will be urged, " At that first beginning of
the Christian Church, regular Church order was not
yet set up. Fifty years later full Church order came
in. Besides, if this ' persecution ' after Stephen's
death had not arisen, these unordained brethren
would never have gone from their homes, nor left
their family duties, to go out preaching. You must
turn to the Epistles of Paul to Timothy and Titus :
you will there see that only two orders of ministers
were to be set apart for teaching Divine truth to
men: the 'elder,' or 'bishop' (1 Tim. iii. 1 — 7;
Titus i. 5 — 9); and the 'deacon,' or subordinate
'minister.' (1 Tim. iii. 8.) Church order existed
when bishops, pastors, and deacons, got into their
settled offices within the Churches. We read then
of no such irregular preachings ; nor do we read of
unordained men travelling to a distance to preach."

Our answer to these objections is —

What you call a "settled state of the Churches,"
is best tested, as we judge, by the Divixe Epistles.
In Eph. iv., then, we read, that " He gave some,
apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ;
and some, pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of
the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the

TO LAY PREACHING. 35

edifying of the body of Christ : till we all come in
the unity of the faith, unto a perfect man."

The figures now used by the Spirit: viz., a growing
building and a body, show what ministries were to
end, and what were to continue throughout our
present "dispensation."

*' Apostles" and ''Prophets" are the beginning of
the building : " Ye are built on the foundation of the
apostles and prophets." That foundation has been
once for all laid. "Evangelists, pastors, and teachers,"
on the contrary, must continue their ministry, in
order to gather in souls.

The office of "Evangelist" is here jDlainly dis-
tinguished from that of "pastor" and "teacher."
Just so are all these three offices distinguished from
that of an Apostle. It is generally admitted that
"apostles" and "prophets," in the full and strict
sense of those offices, were no longer given, nor in-
tended to be given to the Churches, after what we
call the "Apostolic age." Of course we know that
the Pope of Rome is deemed by Roman Catholics as
complete successor of Peter, though he aspires to
powers infinitely above those which Peter had re-
ceived. By what are called "Anglo-Catholics and
Greek- Catholics," — bishops who can trace a lineal
descent to the original Apostolic ordination, — are in
an especial degree "successors of the Apostles;"
and by the laying on of such bishops' hands, the

36 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY AS

Holy Ghost is still given. (Acts viii. 18.) We
believe that such a power was given to the Apostles
alone. They had "seen the Lord" visibly after
His resurrection. (1 Cor. ix. 1.) They alone were
guided "into all the truth" (John xiv. 26), in order
to become inspired teachers of men.

In these three great characteristics, Apostles have
no successors. In vain then do men call themselves
"Apostles' successors," if they have not these three
above-named credentials to show, nor any of them.
But " evangelists," or " messengers of good tidings,"
are a perpetual ordinance in the Church of Christ,
just as well as are " pastors and teachers." That is to
say, as long as masses of ignorant men need the "glad
tidings " to be brought to them, so long must " evan-
gelists " be needed to carry those glad tidings to them.
The world's wide misery, sin and ignorance, prove
the need of evangelism : that is to say, preaching of
the Gospel as distinct from the work of " pastors and
teachers" within their own Churches. Evangelists
may be called the Church's outdoor workers for the
salvation of the outside world, — the constant goers into
the "highways and hedges." Such evangelists are,
I believe, especially the " angels," or "messengers,"
who were to be " sent forth with the sound " of the
Gospel trumpet, " to gather in " sheaves of the elect
"from the four winds of heaven." (Matt. xxiv. 31.)

Let us not be mistaken. Though the offices of

TO LAY PREACHING. 37

pastor and evangelist be distinct, the gifts pecu-
liar to both offices may be combined in the same
person. St. Paul combined them when he stayed
for two whole years with the Church of Ephesus.
(Acts xix. 10.) " These taught jo\x publicly, and
from house to house " (Acts xx. 20) ; and ajDpoint-
ing elders, '' overseers" (bishops), and ''deacons"
were continually to "preach the Word," and to
"do the work of an evangelist.''^ Still it is plain
that in most cases "pastor" and "evangelist"
were not combined, no more than were the "deacon"
and "pastor." Yet how lost have been these dis-
tinctions amongst ourselves, and indeed ever since
the Churches fell from Apostolic rule ! And yet
how common is the remark^ " Such a minister
is an excellent pastor, a kind visitor, and private
teacher of his people; but he is no preacher.^' Or,
again: "He is great in the pulpit, but he is not
fitted for mere pastoral work," etc. We wonder not
at this unequal (as we call it) distribution of gifts :
they were not meant to belong to the same man.
" To one is given by the Spirit the word of know-
ledge; to another (not to the same) the word of
wisdom by the same Spieit." (1 Cor. xii. 8.) And
in Romans xii. 6 — 8, how clear!, "Having then
gifts DiFFEEiNG according to the grace that is given to us,
whether prophecy, let us prophecy; or he that ex-
horteth, on exhortation," etc. If the Churches planted

38 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY.

by Apostles were meant to be in any sense our ex-
amples, what ''order" of ministry do we find in them ?
Certainly not the order that our Churches exhibit : that
is, one man assuming to have all gifts in himself; but
what we may call a constitutional monarchy, in which
elders, or a senate, together with the people, had
their share. The *' angel," or head messenger of
the Church." (Eev. ii.) ''Elders" ordained "in
every Church" (Acts xiv. 23), and acting with the
head j)astor.

Of these "elders," some, but not all, "laboured in
the Word and teaching" (doctrine). (1 Tim. v. 17.)
Then there were "exhorters," "deacons," and
"evangelists" (or Gospel preachers), who were sent
out by the Churches upon temporary missions. For
each such mission the evangelist may have received
the Church's blessing and "laying on of hands" for
their special work. Thus were Saul and Barnabas
commissioned by the Church of Antioch (Acts xiii. 3),
though by all the Churches they had long before been
acknowledged and accredited.

Such appears to have been the Holy Spirit's
" Church order." Each brother who had a " spiritual
gift " (Eom. xii. 6) was to use that gift for the benefit
of the world, or for " the edifying of the Church."

PART IV.

Scripture Testimony— continued.
The Epistles.

PART IV.

Scripture Testimony —continued.
The Epistles.

x\nd now to turn from the practice of Apostles as
described in the "Acts," to the Apostles' doctrine
as described in their Epistles. The latter are twenty-
one in number, out of these Epistles three are
devoted chiefly to the offices and work of ministers
of the Churches; or, as they are called, — bishops,
elders, evangelists, and deacons. Timotheus and
Silas, to whom these Epistles are written, were
sent to "set in order" the Churches which they
visited. Their own personal holiness, their preaching
of a true Gospel, and their constant service of love,
are also much dwelt on. They were, for the time
being, to preside over all ministers and Churches
within the area of their visits. Out of the eighteen
Epistles that remain, the two shorter letters of John
are written to single Christians. The sixteen which
remain, are written to " Churches." To the people

42 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY.

then, or *' laity," was the great bulk of Apostolic
teachings addressed. All readers must be struck
with this fact.

While then the Apostles' exhortations seem to be
so centred on the people, on their faith and their
obedience, their personal duties and obligations, have
those people no share in ministry or in teaching of
Divine truth? Let the two first apostolic Epistles
answer this question. (Eomans xii. chapter, and 1
Corinthians xii. chapter.) From Komans xii. it
appears that the believers at Home needed caution
as to their thinking too highly of the ''sjiiritual
gifts ' ' which they had received for the spiritual good
of their brethren. Gifts these, not of money,
nor what we call high learning and education, but
gifts of spiritual knowledge, and of power to use
that knowledge by the teaching and exhortation of
others ; in other words to use their ministry. * ' I say
to every man that is among you (you are all interested
in this matter), to think soberly, according as God
hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. (Ver.
3.) Having then (all of you) gifts differing accord-
ing to the grace given to us, whether prophecy, let
us prophesy according to the projDortion of faith
(ver. 5) ; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering:
or he that teacheth, on teaching (ver. 7) ; or he
that exhorteth, on exhortation : he that giveth, let
him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with

THE EPISTLES. 43

diligence ; lie that slieweth. mercy, with cheerful-
ness." (Yer. 8.) In 1 Corinthians xii. we read:
'' To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ;
to another the word of knowledge by the same
Spirit ; to another faith by the same Sjiirit ; to another
the gifts of healing ; to another the working of
miracles ; to another prophecy ; to another discerning
of spirits ; to another divers kinds of tongues ; to
another the interpretation of tongues." (Yerses 8 —
10.) In verse twenty-eight of this chapter, we read,
''God hath set some in the Church, first Apostles,
secondarily Prophets, thirdly teachers ; after that
miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments,
diversities of tongues."

From these seven "gifts" named in Eomans xii.,
and the nine "gifts" in 1 Corinthians xii., we at
once take away what are extraordinary and strictly
miraculous "gifts." Healings, tongues, discernment
of spirits, and prophecy in its highest sense we ex-
clude. But there remain "ministr}^," "teaching,"
"exhortation," "giving" (or distributing), ''ruling,"
and "showing mercy," "the word of knowlege,"
"the word of wisdom" and "faith." These nine
" gifts " remain surely to the Church for all ages.

As to "ruling," it of course appertains to presiding
ministers, — bishops, or elders. It has been also gen-
erally thought that "he that ministereth" {SiaKovei)
refers to "ordained" ministers alone. The word

44 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY.

"ministry " belongs howeyer to all Christian service,
— from the "ministry of the Word" by Apostles
(Acts vi. 4), to Phoebe's, as hiuKovov or " deaconness,"
— "a servant of the Church." (Eom. xvi. 1.)

In St. Paul's preface to his list of the " gifts" (in
1 Cor. xii.), he says: "There are diversities of
administrations.^^ In the Greek it is, "differences of
hiaKovlwv — ministries.^^ Upon this passage Dean Al-
ford well remarks in his "Commentary," "These
ciaKotnar must not be narrowed to the ecclesiastical
orders but kept commensurate in extent, with the
gifts which are to find scope by their means." (See
vol. ii.)

But "the word of wisdom," the "word of know-
ledge," with the powers of "exhortation" and
"teaching," are not miraculous gifts. The power
of "exhorting" and of "teaching," was to be
used by each brother according to his " gift," for the
"edifying of the Church." (1 Cor. xiv. 12.) We
may indeed ask, To whom and where were brethren
to address their "exhortations" except to their
fellow-Christians in the Church assemblies, or to the
ignorant and irreligious who were ^^ without ^^ ? And
if so, the people, — or laity, had their proper share
and place in the " ministry of the Word." All doubt
on this point must be removed by the Apostle's
direction to all the Hebrew Christians: "Not for-
saking the assenibling of ourselves together , as the manner

THE EPISTLES. 45

of some is : but exhorting one another : and so much
the more, as ye see the day approaching." (Heb. x.
25.) Here are two directions to all the brethren :
(1) assemble together; (2) exhort one another."
What is an " assembling" of believers but a Church
meeting? What is this mutual "exhortation" by
brethren but a ministry ? A lay ministry if we like
to call it so.

One of the nine " gifts " common to the Church in
all ages is doubtless here set forth. St. Paul's words
would have no meaning for us, in these and all the
many directions which he gave, if we might not
"assemble together" and "exhort one another" in
the Church meetings.

But how long have all these Divine words been
neglected ? It was Wesley who first sought to revive
these primitive "assemblings" for mutual exhorta-
tion amongst believers. And such meetings tended
greatly to cement the Methodist brethren in fellow-
ship. Our "Church of England" still remains a
complete blank as to such fellowship. A Church
must be very far gone from apostolic practice, which,
through its presiding ministers, makes no provision
for these social meetings of believers.

Before leaving the testimony of St. Paul's two
first Epistles, we must remark upon the large space
which he gives to "prophesying" as an integral part

of a Church's " ministry. ^^ As regards its miraculous

46 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY.

power — foretelling tilings to come, — or of "under-
standing all mysteries" (as it appears to mean
in 1 Cor. xiii. 2), it cannot surely have been the
"gift" which the Apostle so earnestly desired for
all his brethren : " Covet earnestly the best gifts ....
but . . . rather that ye may prophecy." (1 Cor. xii. 31,
and xiv. 1.)

In verse three we read that "He that prophesieth
speaketh unto edification and exhortation and comfort."
In Acts XV. 32 we also read that "Judas and Silas,-
being Prophets also, exhorted and comforted." Pro-
phecy here seems to mean a speaking under a high
elevation of Divine love, wisdom, and j)ower in the
heart, but short of what we call immediate inspira-
tion. Speaking thus from a sanctified heart, and from
an enlightened judgment, is a "gift" which has, I
believe, never left the Church of Ciikist, and which
will never leave it.

Having now seen St. Paul's teaching to the Churches
of Pome and Corinth, let us look to the practice of
those Churches as far as the Epistles throw light
upon it.

If we turn to Philippians, chapter 1, we find St.
Paul writing from Eome to his beloved converts at
Philippi. This appears to have taken place during
his first long imprisonment at Pome, about a.d. 61.
For many previous years, however, the message of
salvation had spread widely there, both amongst Jews

THE EPISTLES. 47

and Gentiles. It had borne abundant fruit to the
praise of God. (E-om. i. 8.) Large enough also had
the body of believers become, to contain '' divisions "
amongst them. (Eom. xvi. 17.) St. Paul thus writes
(verse 12 of chapter i.) : " My bonds in Cheist are
become manifest in all the loalace., and in all other
places ; and maxy of the brethren, waxing con-
fident through my bonds, are much more bold to
speak the Word without fear ; some indeed preacli
Christ even of envy and of strife, and some also of
good will. The one preach Christ of contention, not
sincerely, supposing to add aiSiction to my bonds ;
the other of love, knowing that I am set for the
defence of the Gospel. AVhat then ? notwithstandinc^-,
every way Christ is preached," etc., etc.

A more accurate rendering of some important words
in this Scripture will give greater force to the Apos-
tle's meaning. (Verse 13.) ''My bonds are made
manifest that they are in Christ, throughout the
Frmtorian camp, and to all the rest:" i.e.^ army.'^'
(Terse 14.) "And the greater part of the brethren"
(not many of the brethren," as in our version) " are
much more bold to speak the Word without fear."
(Yerse 15.) " Some indeedj^/racA Christ of envy," etc.

Here, then, are two great points established. (1)

* See Professor Lightfoot's admirable Commentaiy on these
verses, and his elaborate explanation of the "Prsetorion"
erroneously translated "palace." Pp. 86 and 97 of his Work,

second edition.)

48 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY.

The greater part of the brethren "spoke the Word
with boldness." Considering the large number of
believers in the Eoman Church, and that the greater
part of them " spoke the Word," we have to inquire
ivhere they used their gift. AVas it merely in private
Church meetings that they "spoke the Word"?
Surely they needed not " boldness ^^ for speaking the
Word to one another. It must have been before the
heathen Eomans, or before those unbelieving Jews
who so abounded in the city, that courage to speak
the Word was necessary.

(2) But these brethren not only " spolce the Word ; "
they preached it. "Some of them preach Christ of
envy," &c. The word is K^/pvaaeiv, — " to proclaim, as
an herald.^ ^ Throughout the Gospels and the Acts
this word is used to describe the preaching of our
Lord and of His Apostles. Out of sixty-one Scrip-
tures which contain the word Kijp/xaaw, fifty-five (in
our English Bibles) render it preach ; and in the six
remaining Scriptures it is rendered "publish" and
" proclaim," implying j^^mJ/Zc teaching or proclaiming.

Most of the Eoman brethren then had become
preachers ; bold preachers of Christ to those who were
ignorant of His blessed Grospel.

The next questions that arise are : Did the Apostle,
as the great ruler of Churches, approve this preach-
ing ? or did he declare it irregular and insubordinate,
because he had not laid hands on nor commissioned

THE EPISTLES. 49

the preachers ? Did he order them to stop their
preaching ?

Let his own words answer : '' What then ? Every
way .... Christ is preached. / therein do rejoice ;
yea, and ivill rejoice. ^^

The next question is, Were these brethren
*' preachers " ordained (as we use that term) ; that is
to say, set apart for exclusive ministry, and ministry
alone, so that they had to give up their usual worldly
business, and cast themselves for support upon the
Church's bounty ? We have no intimation to that
effect. St. Paul was a prisoner within the Frmtorian
camp, where were collected thousands of Imperial
soldiers. As Prof. Lightfoot has reasonably argued,
in his excellent work on the Philippians, the
Apostle's chief ;intercourse, during his two years of
imprisonment laid probably with Roman soldiers.
Many, doubtless, of those brave men had watched
his daily patience and meekness, and listened to his
brotherly teaching ; many doubtless believed, and
turned to the Lord." Then there was " Cassar's
household," out of which many had become savants
of Christ. In chapter iv. 22 (of Philipp.) we read,
* ' All the Saints salute you, and chiefly they that are
of *' Caesar's household." It appears that within the
Emperor's "household" not only were slaves, and
other attendants, but a great part of the city popula-
tion,— all workmen and merchants, &c., who fur-

E

50 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY.

nished anything towards the Emperor's wants or
hixuries, were of his " household." We are not told
that Ceesar's servants left his service because they
turned to the Faith, and gave up idolatry. If, there-
fore, they kept on in his service, but went out oc-
casionally to "preach Christ," they could not have
been ordained, as ive say, to a life of ministry. And
it, therefore, follows that as simple unofficial ''be-
lievers," they went forth to "preach." And though
some of them had mixed and corrupt motives in so
preaching, it was not their preaching which St. Paul
condemned, it was their bad motives.

It is unnecessary to carry our search further into
the Epistles. If Eoman soldiers and workmen might
and did "preach Christ," so might soldiers or work-
men at Philippi, Ephesus, Colosse, or Thessalonica,
do the same. Of the Philippian brethren in general,
we read that they ^^ held forth the Word of life."
(Philipp. i.) Of the Colossians : "Let the word of
Christ dwell in you richly in ^11 wisdom ; teaching
and admonishing one another in psalms," etc. (Col.
iii. 1^1—25.) To the Thessalonians it was written
(1 These, v. 11), "Comfort: i.e., exhort one another,
and edif}^ one another." "They were to warn them
that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, sujDport
the weak... D^sjy/s^ not pro2)hesyi7igs.'^ Which seems
to be a caution against despising those high "gifts"
because the poorer brethren possessed them.

PART V.

The Ministry of Women.

PART V.

The Ministry of Women,

"Your conclusion, however, proves too mucli," it
Trill be said. ''Women, no doubt, formed part of the
scattered multitude who preached. Did the women
preach every where as well as the men? And if
you maintain that the women preached, how does
that consist with the plain command, 'Let your
women keep silence in the Churches ; ' and, ' I suffer
not a woman to teach.'" (1 Cor. xiv. 34; 1 Tim.
ii. 12.)

Answer. "Women, no doubt, formed a large part
of the company. That they preached, or taught
also, is a fair inference from the narrative. And if
the inference be correct, that women preached at all,
it only proves that women might and ought to take
a modest part in speaking of their Saviour to the
ignorant, provided that they thereby neglected no
home duties, and that some great special call to leave
the beaten way invites them. By 1 Cor. xiv. 34,

54 THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN.

women are forbidden to speak *'m the Churches,''^ or
meetings for worship and teaching. But even this
law is qualified by the same Epistle. In 1 Cor.
xi. 5, women may there pray or "prophecy," as well
as men, if their heads be ''veiled." Our English
translation in verse 10 of I Cor. xi. may here be ex-
plained to some readers who do not know Greek.
'*A woman must have power on her head." We
understand from verse 5 the meaning of this term.
''Every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with
her head uncovered funveiledj, dishonoureth her head."

However strong the general conviction be against
women speaking or preaching publicly, yet still by
no Christian Church is the precept fulfilled literally,
that women should "keep silence" in Church meet-
ings. By all Christian Churches women are allowed
to join audibly in singing, as well as in liturgic
prayers, where such are used. The obvious meaning
of St. Paul's strong words in 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12, seems
to be as follows: "They were not to contradict nor
dispute with the elders and Bishops of the Church
in public. When they prayed or prophesied, they
were to be veiled. Such veiling was their ordi-
nary custom, as it still is, in all Eastern countries.
" Because of the angels " they were to be veiled.

Women were to be thus modestly attired. I do
not attempt to decide whether by these " angels " be
intended heavenly or earthly ministers. For my

THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN.

own part, I believe them to be the presiding ministers
or bishops of the Church, — "angels," or "messen-
gers," as they are termed in the seven Asiatic
Churches. (Eev. ii., iii.) And why not in all Churches?
Those who wish to see the different opinions which
have been long held upon these "angels," will find
them in Dean Alford's Commentary on 1 Cor. xi. I,
and in Pool's " Synopsis." But we must look at the
whole evidence from the New Testament, direct and
indirect, in order to gain a just view of the question
of Women's Ministry.

I. On the Bay of Pe}itecost, the women who formed
part of the Church'' s company, named lefore m Actsi. 14,
spoke by the Spirit's power, as well as did the men,
"the wonderful works of God." (Yer. 11.) No
exception is made: "They were all filled with the
Holy Ghost." (Yer. 4.) In explaining this miracle,
Peter refers to Joel's prophecy. Joel had foretold,
"Upon my servants (men) and upon my handmaidens
will / pour out of MY Spirit in those days, and they
shall prophecy.'''' (Yer. 18.) "Your sons and your
dauyhters shall prophecy." (Yer. 17.) Here, then,
at the very morning of the full Gospel-day, and of
the "ministration of the Spirit" (2 Cor. iii. 8), were
women called to "prophecy" in public.

It will be at once replied, " This prophesying was
a miraculous gift, and limited to the first age. It is
no precedent for women's preaching or teaching.

56 THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN.

either in Church meetings or in any public meeting."
We grant that there is force in this answer. Never-
theless, according to 1 Cor. xiv. 1, " prophecying "
is the gift which, above all others, believers are to
" covet after ; " because he that prophesieth, speaketh
unto exhortation, and edification, or ''building up,"
and "comfort," or "persuasion." Now it appears
that to "exhort," to "build up," and to "comfort,"
have been gifts perpetually enjoyed amongst be-
lievers. In the Colossian Church (Colos. iii. 16),
"Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all
wisdom; tea^chmg and admonishing one another," etc.
To the Eoman believers (Eom. xv. 14), " Ye are full
of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to
admonish one another.'''' Such "exhortations" and
"edifyings" as these do not surely imply a full,
Divine, or infallible guidance. They rather imply
tliat the speaker's heart and mind were filled with
a holy and joyful possession of the truth which he
would enforce upon others, and that he spoke from
"tlie abundance of his heart" words which went
with living power to the hearts of others. He was
not, in the strict sense of that word, inspired; still
the precept to all believers was, "If any man speak,
let him speak as the oracles of God." (1 Pet. iv. 11.)
And again, in Eph. v. 18, "Be ye filled with the
Spirit." The man or woman who could thus " ad-
monish" and "exhort," might be truly said, so far,

THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN. 57

to prophesy, or to speak under Diyixe influence,
though they are left to their own choice of words,
and their own arrangement of ideas and subjects.

One more Apostolic order brings out the duty of
Christian women more distinctly addressing Jewish
believers ; I have already remarked upon it in the
former chapter. St. Paul tells them, women as
well as men, to exhort one another in companies
or meetings (Heb. x. 25), "not forsaking the
assembling of ourselves together . . . but exhorting
one another. Unless, therefore, the Apostle limited
this meeting together and this mutual exhorting, to
men only, how can ice do so ? As well might we
limit the precept, "Let us draw near with a true
heart" (Heb. x. 22) ; or, "Let us hold fast the pro-
fession of our faith without wavering" (ver. 23);
and if "assembling ourselves together" (ver. 24)
refers to women as well as to men, then women were
equally called on with men, according to their ability,
to "exhort."

But we have more to say from Scripttjee. The
believers ^^ scattered ^^ after Stephen's martyrdom, and
who ^^ preached every where,'''' included women as well as
men. If it be urged that women are not here named
as preachers, we reply that the burden of proof
lies on the objector, to show that women were not
included in the " multitude ; " and that if they were
so included, they were silent. Such exclusion cannot.

58 THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN.

however, be proved. I therefore take the narrative
in its plain, literal sense. I believe that when the
mothers or wives of the scattered brethren fled
with their husbands and children from Jerusalem,
they spoke of the truth to women and children whom
they met upon their journey. This may have been
done without their standing up to address a mixed
crowd: such would be their "preaching."

But let us see whether in the Epistles there be not
some direct notice of, or allusion to, the preaching of
women.

II. St. Paul, at a late period of his course,
told the Philippians to ''help those women who (had)
laboured" with himself "in the GospeV (Phil,
iv. 3.) Is it not plain that these women had a
teaching ministry of some kind, however subordi-
nate? The very word here translated "laboured" is
ffvvqOXriaav,^' — ^^ they joined in the contest ^^ of the
Gospel, — gives the notion of some active work. "We
cannot hold with the opinion that it means only
" they helped Paul to preach by helping him in his
temporal wants." What he laboured in they laboured
in : " they laboured with m^." *

* See Scheusner's Lexicon. The word means (1) "to exer-
cise oneself xviili others in the Gymnasium (school of contests) ;
(2) metaphorically " to join in a common labour, diligently,
and by all means, to help another who is labouring." The word
only occurs twice in the New Testament, and both times in this
Epistle to Philippians,— Tiere, and in Phil. i. 27. In the latter

THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN. 59

The women here spoken of appear to be Euodia
and Syntyche, just before named. Our ablest
present Commentators (Bishop Ellicott, Dr. Light-
foot, and Dean Alford) consider that the whole
passage thus means: "I beseech Euodia and Syntyche
that they be of one mind. Help these women (to
be of one mind), inasmuch as they laboured in the
Gospel," — "the message of good news," — as this
word invariably means. These women had laboured
in the delivery of that message. Eead also the words
that follow : " Those women who strove together in
the Gospel, with Clement, and with other my fellow-
labourers."

Does any one doubt that Clement was a real
ieW-OW -preacher of the Gospel with Paul ? But Paul
joins the women and Clement together. All three
were fellow-labourers with himself "m the Gospel.^''
What can be plainer than that these women were in
some way or Q\k\.Q-\^ preachers or teachers of the Gospel?
It may have been that the Apostle employed them
to teach women only, but that was Gospel work.

In Bom. xvi. and Phil, iv., we have several

test our version has it, " Striving together for the faith of the
Gospel." Our translators have rendered the word more cor-
rectly, ^'Striving together for the faith;" or, rather, "in the
faith of the Gospel." As well, then, might the word have been
translated in Phil. iv. 3, " Help those women who have striven
with rie in the Gospel." Wei'e our translators afraid of giving
thereby countenance to female ministry ?

60 THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN.

women named by St. Paul as taking some part in
the Gospel ministry: I mean of the ministry of
teaching. We see in Eom. xvi. 1, "Phebe, a servant
of the Church in Cenchrea." The former translators
of our English Bible here render the Greek word
hiaKovov (diaconon) ^^ servant of the Church." But
why give this word a different meaning from what
they have given it in 1 Tim. iii. and Phil. i. 1 ?
There treating of two orders of ministers, the Apostle
calls the second order, hiuKovoe (diaconoi). Our trans-
lators here render it ^^ deacons. ^^ Why, then, is not
Phoebe here termed a female minister j or a *' deacon-
ness " ? Our translators appear to have shrunk
from acknowledging the teaching ministry of women.
Nevertheless, here and elsewhere, are many women
honoured by the Apostle as deaconesses. In Eom.
xvi. 3, '' Salute Prisca, or Priscilla." (See Acts
xviii. 2.) She, with Aquilla her husband, '' ex-
pounded to Apollos the way (of truth) more perfectly."
Here, then, at least, was a woman employed to teach
a man, — one, too, who was "mighty in the Scrip-
tures," and afterwards a most successful preacher.
(1 Cor. iv. 5. Acts xviii. 24.) And when it is added
that '' all the Churches of the Gentiles give thanks "
to Priscilla as well as to Aquilla, we may fairly
doubt whether her ministry was confined only to help-
ing poor believers with food, clothing, and nursing ;
and whether she who could explain the ''way of

THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN. 61

life" to Apollos the eloquent, did not explain it to
hundreds, whether in smaller or larger companies. Five
other women are then named: Mariam (Bom. xvi. 6),
Jiinia (ver. 7), ''Tryphena and Tryphosa" (ver. 12),
and ''the beloved Persis." Eufus's "mother" and
Nereiis's "sister" are then named. Three of these
women are said to "labour in the Lord," and Junia
to have been "of note among the Apostles." (Ver.
7.) What their precise labours were we are not
told ; but in Phil. iv. 2, we read that two other
women, Euodia and Syntyche, had "laboured in
the Gospel." ^

We fully admit that ineaching, in the general
meaning and acceptation of that term, is not en-
joined on women. It is on occasions of extraordinary
necessity, as we say, that their ministry, on a public
scale, might be called for; but, assuredly, loe have
"extraordinary necessity" in the present state of
our great city populations. To this I will afterwards
refer.

Let us now note some signal marks of Divine
favour on the ministry of women, as recorded in
Scripture.

First, then, who would forget that an outcast
woman was once the most successful herald of our
adorable Lord ? " The ivoman left her waterpot, and

* Our translators have here mistaken in patting Euodias
(masculine) instead of a woman's name of Euodia.

62 THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN.

went her way into tlie city, and saith to the men
(''daring irregularity," as we might say), Come, see
a man, who told me all things that ever I did : is
not this the Christ?" ( John iv. 28, 29.) Eemark
here, this Samaritan had not been told by her Lord
to make Him thus publicly known. ** Go, call thy
husband, and come hither" (ver. 16), was the order
given. But her trusting heart must tell out somehow
the glad tidings. "Whatever we choose to call it, —
whether she spoke in the middle of the street of
Sychar, or whether she called her neighbours to her
house, she told them what she had seen and heard.
She told all with word and action so really, that all
the men ''went out of the city, and came unto Him."
(Verse 31.) We may fairly suppose that the term
"men" may here include all the people in general,
as in Acts iv. 4. But were her hearers only me7i, her
boldness, as an eastern woman, was almost incredible.
The point however for our consideration is, Did our
gracious Lord reprove her for it? Did He say,
"Women are for ever forbidden to speak of Me in
an assembly, or to give help in bringing precious
souls nearer to Myself " ? No hint have we of such
a forbidding. But not only so, — God's Spirit honoured
her word, and made it to lead sinners to believe on
Himself. " Noiv we helieve,''^ they said to the woman :
" not because of thy saying ; but we have heard Him
ourselves, and believe that this is indeed the Christ,

THE 3IINISTRY OF WOMEN. 63

the Sayiotjr of the world." (Terse 42.) Many-
Samaritans had, it thus appears, believed on Hiii
first through the woman's testimony; but a multi-
tude more were led, through her simple testimony, to
go to Him, to inquire, and to helieve. Such success
as this did not attend the first preaching by the
*' seventy," as far as we may judge of its effects from
Luke X. 17: "Even the devils are subject unto us
through Thy name," the seventy replied. But they
could not say that " men," more hard to be convinced
than were lost spirits, had repented or believed the
Gospel. The Loed Jesus might have sent ten out of
the *' seventy" disciples, or two out of the twelve
Apostles, in order to announce to the Samaritans that
He was at Jacob's well, and that He waited there to
give unto them " living water." But He was pleased
to use this woman's ministry to do a work which
Apostles did not and might not do; for "into any
city of the Samaritans " they were not to enter.
(Matt. X. 5.) How soul-refreshing is it to see the
woman daring thus to act in her Maker's presence !
to do what she dared not do merely before man !
Her soul, like an uncaged bird, has burst the bars of
fear. It soars and sings " in the open firmament of
heaven."

And lastly, to whom was He pleased frst to
reveal Himself after His resurrection ? "Whom did
He make the first herald of that all-glorious event,

64 THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN.

— a herald of it, not to women only, but to men
also,' — even to "Apostles whom He had chosen"?
'' He appeared ^/-s^ to Mary Magdalene, out of whom
He had '' cast seven devils " (Mark xvi. 9) ; and said
to her, "Go to my hrethren, and say unto them, I
ascend to my Father," etc. Such was His command.
(John XX. 17.) But St. Matthew tells us of a double
commission given to Mary and to " the other women "
named as joining her after she had left the Garden
(John XX. 10), (1) by the angel who had rolled
away the stone from the sepulchre. (Matt, xxviii.
5 — 7.) " Go quickly and tell His disciples that He
is risen." (2) By the Lord Himself. (Verse 9.)
"And as they" (the women) "went to tell His dis-
ciples, behold, Jesus met them. Then said Jesus
unto them, Be not afraid : go tell my bretliren that
they go before Me into Galilee." (Matt, xxviii.)

What can we say to these things ? "Who can doubt
that as He was pleased, after that great event, to
make these women the first messengers of His
finished work on earth, so it may please Him, and
has pleased Him, to choose women, since His Ascen-
sion, to speak to others of His finished work of
mediation in heaven ? What, then, are such S2)ecial
times for women's special ministry, but the times in
ichich we live ? Are not women's loving hearts and
words wanted to speak of Salvation amidst the million
and half of grown up people in London, who are

THE MINISTRY OF W02IEN. 65

living and dying in sin ? or to the 300,000 neglected
souls in Manchester ?

"What shall we say of the modest but impres-
sive teaching of the late Mrs. Stevens (of Knowes-
borough) ? How many hearts and consciences did
her preachinc/ arrest, as she spoke from her chair at
the good Yicar's schoolroom ? Three Bishops were
sometimes amongst her listeners ; and one of our
most distinguished Deans has avowed that his con-
version to the living Power of the Gospel, flowed
from her teaching ?

What shall we say of the beloved Mrs. Daniells,
lately passed from her earthly ministry ? Her life's
last years, her money, her prayers, her voice were
spent in bringing the Gospel of the Eesurrection
amongst our army at Aldershott camp. She taught
it herself — as well as helped many others to teach it
— to soldiers themselves as well as to soldiers' wives.

And what shall we say of the many Christian
women who, in our times, have ' ' laboured in the
Gospel " ? What of Elizabeth Fry, the angel friend
of female prisoners ? What bishop, clergyman, or
dissenting minister, had power or spiritual gifts that
could win the sin-hardened convict women in New-
gate prison ? When her silver voice calmed the
furious into attention ; when her benign look helped
her words, was she an authorized ^vmigelist or mes-
senger of good ? Surely we need not ask such

66 THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN.

questions. She reasoned with, she "exhorted," she
intreated the prisoners to flee from coming wrath ;
to look unto Jesus ; to be reconciled to God. Was
this to preach ? However we may term it, and ex-
plain it away, there was her Divine call to minister,
— there was she manifestly raised up to set an ex-
ample to that class so much to be pitied in our
community, — the class of highly refined and educated
ladies; to show to those "ladies" what Christian
women should be, and what they should do for the
most degraded of their own sex.

But what is the general state of our lady class,
whose mission it should be to work for a Saviour's
glory, by the teaching of women and children and
by helping onward their earthly as well as their
eternal good ? Amongst us there are many cases of
noble female devotion to holy service. But in general,
what are the thousands spent by our Christian ladies
upon '^dress^^ and personal ornaments? "What
thousands do they spend in the teaching of what
are commonly called "accomplishments" to their
daughters? How many in order to "introduce"
them into society, to get them admired, and to enable
them to make good {i.e., good worldly) marriages ?
How great must be the change in our ladg class before
it can fulfil its heavenly mission !

Let them hear the Apostle speak : " Whose adorn-
ing let it not be that outward (adorning) of plaiting

THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN. 67

the hair, or of wearing of gold, or of putting on of
apparel." (1 Pet. iii. 3.) What would the Apostle
have said of the hare faced look of our women ?

Our conclusion then from this comparison of New
Testament Scripture is, That women had, and ought
to have, their proper place of ministry, both in teach-
ing and evangelizing. That St. Paul's two pro-
hibitions in 1 Tim. ii. and 1 Cor. xiv., cannot be
reasonably pressed so as to discourage and forbid
all such ministry. That the bishops and pastors of
churches ought to regulate and encourage such
ministry, and not to despise or disparage it ; but to
cherish every efiort, that the godly women in their
Churches would put forth for the good of souls. That
bishops and pastors ought to commission and set
apart godly women for this work ; that there are
special occasions of urgent necessity which will justify
the taking of a more public part in ministry by women
than would be otherwise required ; and that such
special necessity for women's ministry exists to a large
degree in England and Scotland at the present day,
when whole masses of people in our large towns
are still unevangelized.

PART VI.
(I.)

The Reasons why

Lay Preaching and Teaching fell into

Disuse. IVIinisterial Ranii,

PART VI.

The Reasons why

Lay Preaching and Teaching fell into

Disuse. Ministerial Rank.

We have now established the fact that during the
Apostles' times, unordained men, and women also,
held an important place in the ministry of the Grospel.
We have seen that " evangelists " were appointed by
the Lord to a ministry distinct in itself, though that
ministry might be to some extent combined with that
of pastor and Bishop. We may now inquire how it
was that this lay-evangelism fell into disuse, and how
it became at last forbidden. We need not take a
long time to explain it. The Bishops and pastors of
churches became by degrees invested with unscrip-
tural honour and dignity, and were at last deemed to
be PEiESTS, in the literal and proper sense of that
term : viz., a Jewish sacrificing priest.

(1) Unsoriptural honours and dignities began very
early to he heaped on the head Bishops of Churches. We

72 HEASOXS WHY LAY PREACHING

may give here a few illustrations of this fact out of
Bingham's learned book on " Christian Antiquities."
It is not that we grudge any due or decorous respect
to the ''rulers" of the Churches. Where such respect
is denied to them something must be wanting in our-
selves by too lowered a view of the ministerial calling.
But this respect is due not to office, or names of rank
which men may heap on ministers, but to their earnest
piety and diligent labours. '* Know them who are
over you in the Lord. Esteem them very highly in
love for their work's sake." (1 Thess. v. 12, 13.)
"Eemember them that have the rule over you, who
have spoken to you the Word of God." (Heb. xiii. 7.)
All such respect, however, is totally different from
giving to them the worldly honour of great names,
great wealth, and elevated seats and thrones, and the
ascription of power such as the Lord Jestjs did not
bestow upon His Apostles.

Turn to Bingham (book ii., ch. 2), upon the titles
and dignities to which Bishops were gradually ad-
vanced: "Princes," or "chiefs" of the people (p. 69);
' ' Chiefs of the 2^r tests'' ( Sacerdotum, the Jewish priest) ;
and "Great High Priest" {Pontifex Maximus, the title
of the heathen Roman high priest, taken into the Chris-
tian Church) (p. 71); "Every Bishop anciently called
Father, Papa, or Pope" (p. 72); "Father of Fathers
and Bishop of Bishops" (p. 74); "Patriarchs" (p. 7);
" Yicars of Christ" (p. 78). Then, in ch. ix., on "the

FELL INTO DISUSE.

honours paid to Bishops" : "Bending the head, to re-
ceive their blessing " (p. 127); " Kissing their hands "
(p. 128); *' Singing hosannas to them sometimes, but
not approved" (p. 129); ''Saluting Bishops ^^r coro-
nun^^ (p. 130). Bishops are to be called " most dear
to GrOD most holy" (p. 133). Then come the titles
of ''Archbishops," "Primates," and "Patriarchs,"
in an ascending scale of dignity, till at last the Eoman
Bishop claimed dominion over the Universal Church,
and obtained it through the Western Eoman Empire,
under Justinian, (a.d. 533.)

What would the Apostle Peter have said to Chris-
tians who would bend down for his episcopal " bene-
diction," or crave his "absolution"? "Stand up,"
would he not have said, as he did to Cornelius,
"for I also am a man " ? (Acts x. 22.)

Bingham tells us that by the third century, pres-
byters (elders) were not permitted to sit down in the
presence of "the Bishop." On the same principle,
Mosheim informs us that ^^ suh-deacons^^ mighi not
sit down in the presence of a " deacon." (Mosheim,
cen. iii., part iii., ch. ii., vol. i., p. 238. Notes.
Edit., 1826.)

We find also that by the third century there were
four degrees of rank set up in the higher clergy, and
six degrees amongst what were called " the minor
orders" (Mosheim, p. 239): deacons, sub-deacons,
exorcists, readers, attendants (acolyths), and door-

74 MINISTERIAL RANK.

keepers. (See also Neander's *'Cliurcli History,"
vol. i., pp. 238, 239.) But we find no order of
'■'■evangelists''^ named in these lists. We hear of no
laymen who might have gifts for preaching the
Gospel, encouraged and authorized to do so, and
commissioned by the Bishop or elders of a Church
to evangelize the ignorant.

Finally, to illustrate the unapostolic and exagger-
ated honour paid to "the Bishop," let us take the
testimony of one early Church writer during the second
century. Igxatius, Bishop of Antioch, and a martyr
fur the faith, wrote epistles to many of the Churches
in Asia Minor. That these epistles in their original
form were very early interpreted by subsequent
writers, there can be no doubt. Learned men have
given us the choice of two texts in which to read
Ignatius. Both of these texts, however, cannot be
genuine. From the shorter of them, which perhaps
bears the strongest evidence of genuineness, I cite
the following statements about "Bishops." Epistle
to Ephesians, ch. vi. : " It is manifest, therefore, that
we should look upon the Bishop as on Christ Him-
self." Epistle to Magnesians, ch. vi. : "Your Bishop
presides in the place of God." To the Trallians, ch. iii. :
"In like manner, let us reverence the deacons as an
appointment of Jesus Christ, and the Bishops as
Jesus Christ." To the Smyrnasan Church, ch. ix. :
"It is well to reverence both God and the Bishop.

MINISTERIAL BANK.

He who honours the Bishop, has been honoured by
God. He who does anything witJiout the hiowledge of
the Bishop, does serve the devil.''''

I make these quotations fi'om the newest English
version of Ignatius' letters. ("Apostolic Fathers,"
translated by E,oberts, Donaldson, and Crombie.
Ed. 1867.) This work places before us the larger
and the shorter texts. But how are we, as ordinary
scholars and students, to decide their merits ? In his
masterly work upon Paul's Epistle to the Philippians,
Prof. Lightfoot says that the shorter version of Ignatius
"is probably corrupt or spurious." (Lightfoot on
Philippians, p. 242, in the "Dissertation on the
Christian Ministry.") Who is to decide?

If such views as these about Bishops were common
in Ignatius' time, how far had men travelled from "the
simplicity in Christ " : " Not as though we had dominion
over your faith, but as being helpers of your joy."
(2 Cor. i. 24.) No wonder that the people, or laity,
began to sink in importance, in proportion as
" Bishops " and " elders " were raised to dignity half
DiYiXE. How soon had the "fine gold" of the day
of Pentecost, and of the first Apostolic Churches,
"become dim" !

How short a time had the Loed's warning remained
with those who bore His name (Luke xxii. 24, 25) :
' ' There was also a strife among them, which should
be accounted the greatest. . . . But he that is greatest

76 MINISTERIAL RANK.

among you, let him be as the younger ; and he that
is chief, as he that doth serve." It is quite true that
high titles and pride do not necessarily go together,
no more than does humility follow men of lowest
rank. But the many distictions of rank and respect
set a worldly object of desire before the mind. Christ
had said, ''Call no man your Father (spiritually)
on earth." The Church said, "Call your Bishops
Fathers, Papae, or Popes.''^ It is natural to say, **How
could Ignatius, a holy man, one who had seen and
heard Apostles teach, — how could he thus write about
Bishops, etc. ? As a good man, he would never have
invented such titles. Surely he must have had the
Apostle's sanction for what he taught, as in the
case of infant baptism. That practice, though not
distinctly ordered by the Apostles, was permitted by
them, or it never could have so generally and so early
prevailed. So (may we not reason ?) the duty of
complete submission to a presiding Bishop by all the
members of each Church, must have been sanctioned,
if not directly ordered, by Apostles."

To all this we answer, where we find such difference
of doctrine between that of the pupil and that of his
Master, however good and holy the pupil was, we
must cleave to the Master's teaching. The Apostles
were teachers fully inspired by God, when they wrote
their Epistles to the Churches. Not so inspired were
Clement, Polycarp, or Ignatius, in writing their epistles.

MINISTERIAL RANK. 11

Where, therefore, the inspired and uninspired so
clash against and contradict each other, we have no
choice left. We go to the spring, at its pure fountain-
head. A few yards lower down, this stream may be
losing its brightness amidst the mud and weeds of
men's traditions. And so it undoubtedly did in this
case.

Besides this, Peter, the Primate of the Apostles,
when left to follow his own will in his teaclmig, taught
grave error. He, when uninspired, would have
put the Gentile converts under a half Jewish yoke.
Paul is inspired to declare that Peter, with Barnabas
and others, "walked not uprightly according to the
truth of the Gospel." Paul " withstood Peter to the
face, because he was to be blamed." (Gal. ii. 11.)
Can we then be surprised that Ignatius, an unin-
spired teacher, should fall into some favourite notion
about episcopal power, and think he was promoting
true unity in the Churches by making the " Bishop "
the centre of all spiritual light, around which the
people were to revolve, and from which they were to
draw their light? However honest he may have
been, he can be no guide to us, if he departs from
** the truth of the Gospel," as did Peter ; and though
Ignatius' doctrine about single Bishops became so
soon afterwards generally received, we have only St.
Paul's example to follow as to the standard by which
to judge ail things. The Gospel, as delivered by

MINISTERIAL RANK.

Peter himself at Pentecost, and the Church order
and discipline set up by Peter and his fellow- Apostles,
are the Gospel and Church order by which we must
test all subsequent teaching and all subsequent
Church order.

Ignatius' doctrine, indeed, confutes itself. ^^ Bo
nothing apart from the Bishop^ Had he seen what
came to pass in the fourth century, he would have
seen half the Bishops turn Arians. Would he then
have taught, '*Do nothing withoutyourArian bishop" ?
i.e., "become Arians yourselves." Ignatius should
have said, ''Follow your Bishop as far as he follows
the Gospel."

The "Bishops and deacons" with whom Paul was
contented to correspond at Philippi, and the elders
of Ephesus whom he called Bishops, or "overseers"
(Acts XX. 28 ; Phil. i. 1), had now given way. The
"Bishops and deacons" whom Timotheus and Titus
were instructed to appoint "in every city," were no
longer deemed sufficient rulers and ministers of the
Churches.

One more of what are called "Apostolic Fathers,"
we may cite in order to show how early error came
in to mar the real apostolic ministry. Clement of
Eome comes second in the order of " Fathers." He
may have been St. Paul's "fellow-labourer," as
named in Phil. iv. 3. Tradition makes him the first
presiding "Bishop" of the Eoman Churches. We

MINISTERIAL RANK. 79

have remaining liis two letters to the "Corinthian
Christians." *' They are considered to be genuine.
It appears from Clement's first epistle, that these
Corinthians had turned from the ministry of certain
presbyters (elders) or pastors, whom an Apostle or
his delegate had appointed or "ordained." (Acts xiv.
See also ch. xl. of Clement's first epistle.) It is quite
plain to any common reader of Clement, that his
paramount object is to demand greater respect for
and obedience to their appointed j)astors. All the
blessings which a Church might expect from Cod,
seem in Clement's view to hang on this one thing.
We may agree with Clement as to the sin and danger
of a people casting off godly pastors who had truly
" spoken to them the Word of God," and lived holy
lives before them. But Clement's teaching in this
matter is too unreserved. It is extravagant and un-
reasoning. What if the pastors should teach "another
Gospel"? — should, like Peter, mix false doctrine with
the truth ? Were the Corinthians to submit to such
error ? Such was not Paul's doctrine. When Paul
bade farewell to the Ephesian "elders" (Acts xx.),
he foretold that some "from amongst themselves"
would prove to be "wolves," not sparing the flock,
^^ &^eakm^ perverse things.''^ (Yer. 29, 30.)

* See "Apostolic Fathers," as above cited. Also Archbishop
Ware's translation of their writings, and the Eev. S. Chevallier's
translation.

80 MINISTERIAL RANK.

Clement, in order to justify this rash teaching,
tells the Corinthians that ministerial order and minis-
terial precedence should prevail under the Gospel as
well as under the Mosaic law. His words are in
ch. xli. Speaking of ministerial offices, he says,
"To the chief priest his peculiar offices are given,
and to the priests their own place is appointed, and
the layman (o XaiKop) is confined within the limits of
what is common to laymen."

Without openly avowing it, Clement seems to make
*'Bishoj)s" and pastors take the place of the Jewish
high priest, and the priests under him. And since
high priest and priests under the law fell into their
offices through family succession, and not by merit of
personal holiness, so we suppose Clement to imply
that Bishops and pastors were to be followed and
obeyed, whether fit or unfit for their office.

''But the layman is confined within the limits of
what is common to laymen^ But what are the lay-
man's limits ? Clement does not tell us. He leaves
us under the impression that the laity, that is, all the
believers who were not regularly appointed ministers,
had no ministry at all. How different such teaching
from that of his own teacher, Paul !

St. Paul, as we have seen, had like Clement,
written two letters to these same Corinthians, per-
haps thirty years before. When Paul wrote, he had
to blame them as much for over-valuing as under-

MIXISTERIAL EAXK. 81

valuing their appointed teachers. ''Who then is
Paul, and who ApoUos, but ministers through whom
3'e believed," etc. ? But we read of no unquestioning,
unconditional obedience even to himself: "Let a man
so account of us (Apollos and himself, I Cor. iv. 6),
as the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the
mysteries of God." (1 Cor. iv. 1.) He tells them,
"Be followers of me, as I am also of Christ"
(1 Cor. xi.), but no further. If he corrupted the
Truth, they must flee from him. "Though we or
an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel than
that which ye have received, let him be accursed.^'
(Gal. i. 8.)

As to our submissio7i to godly pastors, it is a duty
which the Apostle in several places solemnly enjoins.
But in his first Epistle to Corinth, he extends this
submission to all who in any way ministered, according
to the various forms of ministry which the Apostle
enumerates. In 1 Cor. xvi. 15, 16, he says, "Ye know
the house (or family) of Stephanus, that they have
addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints ;
that ye submit yourselves to such, and to every one that
helpeth with us, and laloureth.'^ Here submission is
enjoined to a whole godly family, and to all earnest
"labourers in the Gospel;" and we have already
seen that tvomen were amongst these fellow-labourers.
This is doctrine very diff'erent from that of Clement :
viz., prostrate obedience to 07ie set of ministers only;

G

82 MINISTERIAL RANK.

very different to that of Ignatius, who taught pros-
trate, blind obedience to one head minister.

Paul's delight it was to see all the brethren using
their spiritual gifts, provided that they used them to
edification. As to office, or personal dignity, he has
said next to nothing. In one place, indeed, he said
to the Corinthians, "I magnify mine office." (Eom.
xi. 13.) But how did he magnify it? — "In all things
approving ourselves as Christ's ministers^ (2 Cor.
V. 6.) Surely, had implicit submission to any one
pastor or Bishop been in St. Paul's view the standing
remedy for a Church's divisions and disorders, St.
Paul would at once have said so. When detained a
prisoner at Eome, and when many brethren (as we
have seen) disowned his apostolic teaching, could he
not have told them, on Divine authority, that they
must bow down to himself? But he rests all his
claims to their allegiance to the unspotted purity of
his life, to his extraordinary labours and sufferings
for the good of their souls, and to the miraculous
calling by which the "ministry " had been conferred
upon him, "to testify the Gospel of the grace of
God." No warrant did he leave for the teaching
which our fathers and ourselves have so long heard :
i.e., reverence to Bisliops and clergymen on account of
their office, and irrespective of their piety or spiritual
gifts. As " successors of the Apostles " we have been
told to regard all ordained Bishops and clergy. "We

MINISTERIAL RANK. 83

liave been told to believe a falsehood. Through mere
*' ordination," they never received "a spiritual gift"
which they had not received before such ordination.
Ordination is only the recognition of gifts and grace
that have been bestowed on the ordained man heforc
his ordination. Ordination is the outward commission
which the ministers of a Church give to those who
have been already ''moved by the Holy Ghost"
to enter the ministry.

According to the Prayer-book Service for " Ordi-
nation," every candidate is supposed to have received
some high "spiritual gift" for ministry, before he
can honestly answer to the tremendous questions
which are put to him by a Bishop, respecting his
present holy standing in the faith of Christ, and his
purpose of unreserved devotion to His Service. Had
this Service consisted only of these questions, of
prayer, exhortation, the answers, and the "laying
on of hands," it had been well. But unfortunately
the Bishop'.s hands are made to be the certain channel
of the Holy Spirit's Gifts. Of this error we must
more fully speak in the next part. This error has
caused nearly all the convulsion which is now heaving
our National Church. Its only cure lies in its removal
from the Prayer-book.

PART VI.

(11.)

Causes which Led to Stop Lay Ministry.
Priesthood.

Remains of Priesthood in the
Church of England.

PART VI.

Causes which Led to Stop Lay Ministry,
Priesthood,

Remains of Priesthood in the
Church of England.

A FAR graver error than tliis unscriptural dignity of
Bishops, soon arose. Bisliops and pastors begun to
be called and regarded as peiests, and afterwards as
sacrificing priests, like the Jewish or heathen priests.
It is probable that nearly to the end of the second
century. Bishops and pastors may have been called
''priests," because they in a measure r^^r^s^w^^fZ the
people in the common prayer and praise of a Church
meeting. They as it were offered up the '' spiritual
sacrifices " of devotion, as the mouthpiece of the
brethren. Just so, in our Church meetings, ministers
say, " We pray, we praise," as if they spoke in behalf
of the congregation.

In order to show the progress of this error, we
may turn again to Clement of Eome. He speaks of
as we have seen, the ''high priest," and the "priests"
under him, apparently as fulfilling under the Law,

PRIESTHOOD.

what ''Bisliops and deacons" do under the Gospel.
But in eh. xlvii. of his first letter to Corinth, his
English translators have made Clement to call such
ministers priests. Archbishop "Wake, and the Eev.
T. Chevallier, in their translation from the Greek,
have done this. *' It is dreadful, beloved, that the
most firm and ancient Church of the Corinthians,
should, by one or two persons, be led into a schism
against their ^;n>s^s." (See also ch. xlv.) I cite these
words from two translations of Clement's letters by
Archbishop Wake, and by the late Eev. T. Chevallier.
It is surprising that two scholars. Archbishop
Wake and Chevallier, should so mistranslate the
word used by Clement. Trpea^vrepo^, preshi/ter, is the
word that Clement uses. By these scholars it was
well known that in all the New Testament Scriptures
where it occurs, it is never translated priest. The
word invariably used is " elders.''^ It occurs sixty-six
times in the New Testament. Out of this number,
sixty-five texts give the rendering ''elder." Once
only is it translated "old men" (in Acts ii.) ; and
once (incorrectly) ''eldest" (in Luke xvi.). The
Greek word for "priest" is a word totally difi'erent.
It is iepev's. And to show how unfair and absurd,
as well as dangerous to truth's cause it was thus
wroBgly to translate Clement's "presbyters," we may
say that if Clement's elders may be called priests, so
may the "elders" of the Jewish Church who are so

PRIESTHOOD. 89

often joined with the ''chief priests" in the Gospel
history, be translated "priests" also. Thus we should
read in Matt, xxvii. 1, ''All the chief priests and
the priests of the people took counsel together."

But though Clement does not actually call pastors
by a Jewish name, he is the first to suggest a resem-
blance between Levitical priests and Christian Bishops
and ministers, if indeed he did not mean that Levitical
priests were types of Gospel ministers. In his first
letter (ch. xl. and xli.), Clement so presses his analogy
of the old temple ritual, as a model for Christian
Church-order, that few could doubt that in his view,
the Gospel ministry was to be a successor of the
Levitical priesthood. I subjoin his words (in ch. xl.
and xli.) : "We perform our offerings and service to
God, at their appointed seasons. For these He hath
commanded to be done, not rashly and disreally, but
at certain determinate seasons and hours. He hath
Himself ordained, by His supreme will, both where
and by what person they are to be performed, that
all things being piously done unto all well-pleasing,
they may be acceptable to His will. They, therefore,
who make their oblations at the appointed seasons, are
accepted and happy ; for they sin not, inasmuch as
they obey the commandments of the Lord. For to
the cliitf priest his peculiar offices are given, their
own place is appointed ; and to the Levites appertain-
ing their proper ministries ; and the laijman is con-

90 PRIESTHOOD.

fined within the bounds of what is conimanded to
laymen."

Here remark ( 1 ) the rigid enforcement of * ' seasons ' '
and 'dimes'' is just what St. Paul had before con-
demned and forbidden in the Galatian Church : ''Ye
observe days, and months, and times, and years; I
am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed on you labour
in vain." It was the return to Judaism. (2) Clement
calls this Judaic "order" a Divine command to
Christians. He says (ch. xl.), ''These hath He com-
manded to be done at certain commanded times and
hours." Against all this comes in the Divine warn-
ing (Matt. XV. 6), "Ye have made the Word of Gtod
of none effect by your tradition." (3) The layman
is a newly-invented name for those who are uniformly
called by the Apostles " brethren," " believers,"
"saints." We do not object to the distinction between
people, or "laity," and ministers, elders, etc. But
Clement's "layman" is actually put in contrast with
the priest, and tends to sever the people of a Church
from their \x.m.YeY&2i\ priesthood^'"

* See Chevallier's note on o \aiKop avnp, page 40 of his
" Apostolic Fathers." Any reader who wishes for a short and
clear account of the gradual passage made from this universal
priesthood (the calling of all believers), back to the Jewish or
Aaronic priesthood, which Bishops and elders afterwards as-
sumed, will do well to study Prof. Lightfoot's admirable "Dis-
sertation on the Christian Ministry." It is appended to his
notes upon St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians.

PRIESTHOOD. 91

Clement is no safe or dependable guide. He liad
left the Pauline standard. But to the grand error let
us turn, — that of a sacrificing, or sin-atoning priesthood,
of which Clement and other early writers sowed the
seed. If human words can ever convey truth in a
simple form, and if the Holy Spirit deigns to teach
truth to man through such human words, then the
one great truth taught by that Spirit in the Epistle
to the Hebrews, cannot be mistaken: " That the Lord
JEsrs should offer up Himself once, and once for all,
to lear man's iniquity, and hear it away^ The sac-
rifice of Christ was to be once only, — ^just as man's
bodily death was to be once only. Such was the truth
to be told to man. The words are these : 'Tor Christ
is not entered into the holy places made with hands,
the figures of the true ; but' into heaven itself, now
to appear in the presence of God for us : nor yet
that He should ofi'er Himself often, as the High
Priest entereth into the holy place every year with
blood of others ; for then must He often have suffered
since the foundation of the world : but now once
{airn^, once for all) in the end of the world (completion
of the ages) hath He appeared to put away sin by
the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed
unto men once {for all) to die, but after this the
judgment: so Christ was once {for all) off'ered to
bear the sins of many," etc. (Heb. ix. 24 — 28.)
Well may we ask, "Were words ever plain and intel-

92 PRIESTHOOD.

ligible, if tliese words are not ? Now we know that
the doctrine gradually received into the Churches,
was that Cheist was to be offered up again as a sacrifice
for sin. He was to be thus offered in the Communion,
or what was afterwards called, ^^ The Massy And
He was to be offered up as a new Sacrifice for sin, in
a way entirely new, through the hands of earthly
priests. And these new sacrifices for sin were to be
as necessary for man's salvation as the great Sacrifice
on Calvary. No contradiction can be imagined greater
than this statement of inspired Scripture, and the un-
inspired statement made by the " Church " (so calling
itself), in the course of a few centuries.

The error began in a superstitious view of the
bread and wine after their consecration by the elders.
In the reserving of the bread and wine thus consecrated,
for such people who could not be present at the Church
meeting, and in the extraordinary eflB.cacy supposed
to exist in the bread and wine, as conferring immor-
tality on the bodies of believers. Ignatius (a.d. 101)
says (Letter to Ephes. xx.), "Obeying your Bishop
and the presbytery with an entire affection ; breaking
one Iread, which is the medicine of immortality, our anti-
dote that ive should not die, but live for ever with the
Lord."

Irenseus (a.d. 167) advances a still further step in
this error of putting the outward bread and wine in
the place of Him whom they commemorate. In his

PRIESTHOOD. 93

work ''Against Heresies," he says (book iv., cli.
xxxiv., p. 327. Oxford, 1702), "In the sacrifice {i.e.,
of the Eucharist) we show forth the communion and
union of flesh and spirit ; for as the food when the
name of God is invoked over it, becomes no longer
cotnmon food, but Eucharist ; compounded of two
things, the one earthly, the other heavenly ; so, our
bodies, receiving the Eucharist, are no longer corrupt-
ible, hut possessed of the hope of eternal life.^^

Tertullian speaks of "believers partaking of the
grace of the Eucharist, by the cutting up and distri-
buting of the Lord's body, in the same manner as
the flesh of a victim was distributed at a sacrifice."
(Tertullian against Maran.)

Within my limited space, I cannot of course lead
the reader through the gradual "development" (as it
is now called) of this gross and material "Eucharist."
Those who have not read, or cannot read the early
"Fathers," from Clement to Tertullian (a.d. 192),
will find a clear statement of the monstrous doctrine
in Mr. Osburn's able book, called "Doctrinal Errors
of the Apostolical and Early Fathers" (pp. 97 — 109).

No doubt the culmination of this extraordinary
dogma was not fully reached till the Council of Trent
made it to be "an Article of the faith," binding as
essential upon the souls of men. The same doctrine
is virtually held as to priest and sacrifice, by the
Greek Church: "We therefore confess that the sacri-

94 PRIESTHOOD.

fice of the Mass is one and the same with that of the
cross ; . . . and the oblation of the cross is daily re-
newed in the Eucharistic sacrifice. . . .The priest, in-
vested with the character of Christ, changes the
substance of the bread and wine into the substance
of His real body and blood." ("Qatechism of Council
of Trent," p. 249 of Donovan's translation. 1829.)

Here, then, we see the subtle design of the great
enemy of Truth. Not only was a new atoning sacri-
fice to be offered, but that sacrifice must be offered
through marl's intervention. Without a human priest
it could not le offered. Man was thus made to be an
intermediate Saviour of his fellow-men.

To what a pitch of majesty, then, and authority,
was the priest to be lifted up ! He at last became,
according to the so-called Catholic doctrine, a super-
human being. Jewish priests had great dignity, but
they only offered the blood of lambs, of goats, of
bullocks. Christian priests were to take in their pol-
luted hands the real body of the Eterjs^al Word,
made flesh. The people, or laity, could only look
with awe upon them. The ^^ brethren'''' were divided
by a gulf impassable from the priest. Hence the
degraded state of any people who are placed under
this priestly system. Men (the people) have practi-
cally no individual responsibility. Their very con-
science is in the priest's hands. In religion they are
mere passive children. Hence the state of France,

PRIESTHOOD. 95

Italy, Spain, and Austria. Hence, too, the state of
Ireland.

But what of priesthood in England ? we may ask.
Is there any such doctrine of priesthood amongst
ourselves ? One of the most unfortunate errors into
which many of our English '^Eeformers" fell, was
to retain the title of "priest" for the sacred order
of pastors in the Church established by law. It
is true that the mere name of ''priest" would
have done little harm to its bearers or to their
Church, had it been explained to mean a simple pres-
lyter or elder. And such is the meaning of "priest"
which a large part of the clergy have always given
to this word. "For," say they, "our Church gives
us no real priestly functions, such as the old Catholic
Church gave to its priests. JVe only offer sacrifices
of prayer, praise, and the commemoration of the Loed's
death in the Communion. Why not let us retain the
name 'priest' ?"

Our answer is obvious. If you have no real priestly
functions, why be called priests ? If the mere title,
without its functions, be of no valid use or meaning
to you, why so anxious to keep it ? The fact is that
Cranmer and his fellow-labourers hiew quite well,
when they drew up their first and second Prayer-books
(in Edward the sixth's reign), that this title of ^^ priest'^
was never given to ministers durmg the Apostles' time.
They kneiv that for the space of 1,200 years the higher

96 PRIESTHOOD.

clergy had been called "priests," lecause they were
believed to offer a new sin-atoning sacrifice. Cranmer
hieiv that the Eastern and "Western Churches used the
term as interchangeable with that of elder. Our
English ''Eeformers" linew that the foreign reformed
Churches had rejected the title of ^^ priest,''^ because
they believed it to be unscriptural and dangerous.
Why then retain the title ?

It is not so clear that Cranmer intended to sweep
away all unlawful priestly functions from the "re-
formed" clergy. English Church history proves
that he did not act in these matters without serious
warnings from his more consistent brethren in
England, and from many who would have put
away the name as well as the functions of the Eomish
priest. Cranmer and his friends, in drawing up their
"Ordination" services, borrowed an important part
of the Boman Ordinal. In giving the ministerial
commission to the candidates, the latter are thus ad-
dressed by the Bishop : " Eeceive the Holy Ghost
for the office and ivorh of a priest in the Church of
God. . . . Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are for-
given ; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are
retained." (See Palmer's " Origines Liturgicse,"
vol. ii., compared with " Pontificate Pomanum,"
vol. ii.) It is remarkable that in the Pomish Ordinal
we fi.nd the title "presbyter" put for that of ^^priesty
But in Cranmer's and (after him) Archbishop Parker's

PRIESTHOOD. 97

Ordination Service, as well as in the Latin version of
the Thirty-nine Articles, sacerdos, not presbyter, is the
title given to the second order, sacerdos being the
Jewish priest. (See Articles 32 and 36.) So also we
read in a later work of Cranmer, called " The Power
of the Keys," and in the Latin preface to the Ordi-
nation Service, "Bishops, priests, and deacons," are
translated ^^ Episcopi, sacerdotes, diaconiy

By good men we are constantly told that the words,
"Whose sins ye forgive," etc., convey no idea of
power to forgive, such as the Eomish priest claims.
The words mean simply, "Declare and pronounce to
His people, being penitent, the absolution and re-
mission of their sins." You tell the penitent that
"He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly
repent," etc. Such is the just commission belonging
to all true ministers of the Gospel, etc.

Much may be said on this ground. We doubt not
the sincerity of those who thus argue, but we say
that they have blinded themselves (by habit, as men
so often do when favoui'ite "traditions" are attacked)
to pervert the plain meaning of loords. Surely the
danger of these unscrij)tural titles and commissions
in the Prayer-book, has sufficiently proved itself
during 'the last thirty -five years. Since that time,
probably one-third of our clergy have learned to be-
lieve themselves priests, in the Jewish sacrificial sense
of the term. Is it not high time to do away this

H

98 PRIESTHOOD.

dangerous title, with the unscriptural formula of
commissioiiing ministers which it now accompanies ?

We are threatened with a ''revision" of our in-
comparable English Bible. Is not a ''revision" of
the Prayer-book of far more pressing importance?
Very little, if any false doctrine has been extracted
from the erroneous translations of a word in Holy
ScRiPTUEE, Thousands of men, on the other hand,
believe themselves to be real priests, because a Bishop
said to them, "Eeceive the Holy Ghost for the office
and work of a priest."

But the danger does not end in words which are
interpreted so differently by different men. Cranmer,
and after him Parker, set forth another formula of
"absolution." In the "Visitation of the Sick"
Office are contained the following rubric and declara-
tion: "Here shall the sick person be moved to a
special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience
troubled with any weighty matter ; after which con-
fession the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and
heartily desire it), after this sort : ... By His autho-
rity committed to me, I absolve thee eeom all thy
SINS, in the name of," etc.

The words are no longer, "I declare and pronounce
to you the forgiveness of sins," but " I absolve you."
Authority is given to the priest to absolve us. Such
teaching as this ought to be expunged from the
Prayer-book. The best proof that this Visitation

PRIESTHOOD.

Service is tliouglit improper and inconsistent with the
general standard of Scriptural teaching in the Prayer-
book, is, that the far greater number of our best
clergymen never offer to use it. They are, I believe,
ashamed to see it in the book.

To answer that no independent nor inherent power
of ''absolving" is claimed for our "priests," but
that they do so by authority of CnmsT," is merely to
repeat what every Eomish or Greek priest will tell
you as to his Divine commission. It is " as God "
that he absolves the penitent. "We dispute and deny
that DiTiNE " authority " is given to Eoman, Greek,
or English "priests," to say to a dying man, "I
absolve thee."

Why, then, we again ask, did Cranmer and Parker
leave such dangerous words and such false ministerial
assumptions in this Office ? The answer is that
Cranmer only emerged gradually from that Eomanism
in which he had been reared, that Papal system in
which he had been ordained a Bishop ; and that even
after Edward the Sixth's accession, he dared not boldly
to throw off all its "traditions." Secondly, Arch-
bishop Parker, less of a bold Eeformer than was
Cranmer, dared not offend Queen Elizabeth by a
thorough removal of Eomish ritual.

Should any one be desirous to see these assertions
proved, I refer him to a short comparison between the
first and second Prayer-books of King Edward the

100 PRIESTHOOD.

Sixth, as compared with that of Elizabeth, which I
place in an appendix. The main reason for the re-
taining so much of Bomish ritual, was doubtless the
vain hope of conciliating the many Eoman Catholic
priests and people who for a time conformed to the
''reformed" services, Liturgy, etc. Dr. Cardwell's
learned book called ''A History of the Prayer-book
Conferences," will prove that Queen Elizabeth and
her intimate advisers added those very significant
words to the Communion Service which are uttered
at the delivery of the bread and wine to the com-
municant. Words these, as Dr. Cardwell says, ^Hhat
might convey, though they would. not necessarily involve
the doctrine of the Real Presence.''^ So also did Elizabeth
remove the important cautionary " declaration " re-
specting kneeling before the Communion Table, so
wisely introduced by King Edward into his second
book, and to the effect "that no adoration was done
or ought to be done to any Eeal or Essential Presence."
(See Cardwell's " Conferences," pp. 38—44.)

Of course, in proportion as Elizabeth's Prayer-book
(which is virtually our present book) restored Romish
rites or Pomish terms attendant on the "Communion,"
in such proportion the notions of priestly power and
office were "conveyed, though not necessarily in-
volved," as Dr. Cardwell says, "concerning the Peal
Presence." Elizabeth next restored the "rubric of
ornaments, vestments," etc., which Edward's second

PRIESTHOOD. 101

book had expunged. A great part of the Eomish
priestly Mass, vestments, and lighted candles, were
thus by law enjoined on the clergy; and though a
general disuse of these priestly dresses followed', as
it were, by consent of clergy and people, the priestly
rubric remains still a statute law, until Parliament
and the Sovereign decree its removal. And I believe,
that so long as these dangerous errors that prop up
priestly assumptions remain parts of the Prayer-book,
so long will thousands of clergymen deem themselves
to be ''Catholic priests^''^ instead of Apostolic pres-
byters. So long will they go on nearer and nearer
to the Eoman apostacy, and so long will they mislead
hundreds of deluded hearers to act more consistently
than their deluded teachers : viz., to join Eome itself.
It may be urged that " All candidates for ' orders '
who approach the solemn rite with earnest, behoving
prayer to God, will doubtless bring down upon their
souls the Spirit's blessing, and new grace thereby to
work in the ministry; so that it may be truly said,
they in ordination ' receive the Holy Ghost.' " New
grace and life, no doubt, such believing prayer will
call down upon their souls ; but so will believing
prayer on all other occasions bring down the same
rich blessings. Still, spiritual "grace" and "life"
are not the same as the "spiritual gifts" that we
have been treating of in Part III. and lY. " Eeceive
ye the Holy Ghost : " when their Loud " breathed "

102 PRIESTHOOD.

these words on His Apostles, He conveyed to them,
miraculous knowledge of His full Gospel truth, such
as they had not before possessed. He conveyed to
them miraculous knowledge of the meaning of Scrip-
ture, and of its mysterious prophecies. " As yet they
knew not the Scripture, that He must rise from the
dead." (John xx, 9.) Of the eleven Apostles it is
said that "He opened their understandings, that
they should understand the Scriptures." (Luke
xxiv. 45.) The Holy Ghost, who was "breathed"
upon Apostles, was to " bring all things to their re-
membrance, whatsoever Christ had said unto them"
(John xiv. 26) : a gift surely miraculous. He was
" to show them things to come : " another miraculous
gift. (John xvi. 13.) He was to "lead them into
all the truth" (John xvi. 13), so that they could
declare and write down for our guidance "the whole
counsel of God." (Acts xx. 27.)

Up to the time of the Spirit's descent, most of
the Apostles were "ignorant and unlearned men."
(Acts iv. 13.) As Galilean peasants, or fishermen,
they knew not letters, "not having learned." (John
vii. 16) ; much less could they read the Hebrew
Bible; or the Greek version of it, the Septuagint;
or the Pentateuch, written in the Samaritan dialect.
If they were now made able to read the Scripture
it must have been by miracle.

What we contend is, that by and at a Bishop's

PRIESTHOOD. 103

"laying on of hands," not any spiritual gift, pro-
perly so-called, has been or is imparted, such as
followed our Diyene Lord's words, "Eeceive ye the
Holy Ghost." Most dangerous was it then for
Cranmer and Parker to retain these words in their
service. The service has puffed up too many ordained
men with the notion that they had received what they
never received. Hundreds who went into the Church,
as it is called, in order to get a moderate income with-
out much work, to belong to a genteel profession, or
to take a ''family living," have believed themselves
DiYii^ELY called, and to be "successors of the Apos-
tles." Many more thousands of people, shocked at
such contradiction between reality and profession,
leave the national Church for ever. How can this
be wondered at in those who seek spiritual instruction
for their souls ? who cannot live upon the husks of
outward ministerial titles and supposed Apostolic
commissions without Apostolic grace or gifts ?

No proof is there that any man of feeble intellect
has left the Cathedral with an enlarged and vigorous
understanding. No man deficient hitherto in critical
knowledge of Scripture, has been suddenly filled
with such knowledge ; no man hitherto slow of utter-
ance, hesitating and confused in his speaking, has
been at once made to be clear and fluent in writing
or speaking. The "gifts" of "teaching," "exhor-
tation," "prophecy," or speaking in foreign tongues.

104 PRIESTHOOD.

have been never once miraculously given upon a
Bishop's ordination. Enlarged and comprehensive
knowledge of "all the truth" has never flashed
upon those who before-time had not been even
prayerful students of Scripture. In all these cases
ordination has left a man where it found him. And
men in general are too honest to avow that they have
received any supernaturally sudden ''gift."

What is most important to the ordained man, and
to the people who are called his flock, no record have
we that a man, heretofore worldly and unrenewed in
heart, has, at his ordination, undergone that mighty
change which our Lord has called ''being born
again," and which the Spirit has defined as a pas-
sage " from, darkness unto light," and a rising " from
death unto life." (Eph. v. 8; Eom. vi. 11.) Thus
neither has the regenerating Spirit, nor miraculous
"gifts of the Spirit," ever followed or accompanied
(as far as evidence has reached us) any ordination
by a Bishop, no more than by a Presbytery.

In an Appendix to this work, I put down some
remarks upon the Defence which the present Bishop
of Manchester has lately given to us of this Ordi-
nation Commission. This Defence may be taken as
a fair specimen of the inconclusive reasoning with
which many good and learned men are satisfied.

On the whole subject of revising the Liturgy, and
of bringing the Ordination and other Services to a

PRIESTHOOD, 105

more Scriptural standard, I refer the reader to tlie
following petition, which a large number of the Irish
Church laity have signed and presented to their
General Synod. We may cordially wish that in
England laymen would do the same : —

From the " Eecobd " Newspax>eT of May Srd, 1872.

** Having seen that an address from certain members
of the Irish Church, deprecating any revision of the
Prayer-book, was presented to the General Synod by
his Grace the Lord Primate, we, as members of the
Irish Church, feel imperatively called upon to present
a counter declaration, lest our silence should be mis-
construed into indifference or hostility with reference
to the great quesllun of Liturgical Revision, in which
we as Churchmen are deej^ly interested. We beg
leave to state —

*'I. That, considering the retrograde character of
the alterations made in our Prayer-book, in the
reigns of Ehzabeth, James I., and Charles II., it is
the bounden duty of all who regard the Reformation
of the sixteenth century as the result of an outpour-
ing of the Holy Spirit on the minds and hearts of
our Reformers, to frustrate by a searching and
thorough revision of our Prayer-book the persistent
attempt to bring back our Church into bondage to
* the tyranny of the Bishop of Eome and all his

106 PRIESTHOOD.

detestable enormities,' from wliicli, by God's bless-
ing, -we were delivered at the Beformation.

*'II. That we regard with much satisfaction what
has already been accomplished by the joint labours
of the Revision Committee and the Synod. We
allude particularly to the eliminating of the Apocry-
pha from the Lectionary, the removal of the names
of the apocryphal saints from the calendar, and the
rubric to be prefixed to the Morning Service, declar-
ing that whenever the word ' priest ' occurs, it is to
be understood as meaning nothing more than pres-
byter ; but we must express an earnest hope that the
necessity of such a rubric will be obviated by the
total removal of the word priest as designating any
order of ministry.

*'III. We are deeply persuaded that no revision
will satisfy the requirements of Scriptural truth, and
the desire of the earnest members of our Church,
which does not include the following particulars : —

"1. The total ignoring of any judicial authority
or power of our ministers in the matter of absolution.
To accomplish this, the form of absolution in the
service for the Visitation of the Sick should be totally
expunged, and also the reference to this matter in
the address to intending communicants, in our Com-
munion Service. We must also get clean rid of the
following sentences in the service for the Ordering of
Priests : — ' Eeceive the Holy Ghost for the ofiice and

PRIESTHOOD. 107

work of a priest in the Church of God, now com-
mitted unto thee by the imposition of our hands.
Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, and
whose sins thou dost retain they are retained.' So
long as such statements hold a place in the Prayer-
book, it is vain to expect that any effectual check
can be given to the anti-Christian sacerdotalism
which has produced such calamitous results in Eng-
land, and which is ' eating as doth a canker ' in our
Irish Church.

"2. The sentences which mar the perfection of the
most solemn and impressive service for the Burial of
the Dead, by imposing on the minister the necessity
of using what is regarded as the language of assur-
ance with reference to the salvation of the departed,
should be omitted.

"3. The expressions in our Communion Service,
and also in our Chiirch Catechism, which seem to
favour the notion of an objective presence of Christ
in the Sacrament, must be removed. The following
sentence in the Catechism, descriptive of the supposed
'■ inward and spiritual grace ' of the Lord's Supper, is
specially objectionable: — 'The body and blood of
Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and re-
ceived by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.*

" 4. The sentences in the Baptismal Service and the
Catechism which seem to assert that every baptized
infant is ipso facto 'regenerated,' — 'born again,' —

108 PRIESTHOOD.

' regenerated by the Holy Spirit,' — ' made a member
of Christ,' — 'grafted unto His holy Church,' — con-
stituted 'the child of God by adoption, and an in-
heritor of the kingdom of heaven.' These sentences,
and every other expression which may be construed
into an assertion of the effect of the Sacrament,
should be totally expunged. Interpreted according
to the plain meaning of the words as they now stand,
they contain the essence of sacramentalism, and
should have no place in the formularies of a Church
reformed according to the model of Scripture. The
use of the sign of the cross in baptism, and the
appointment of godfathers and godmothers, are con-
fessedly human ordinances, and their use or disuse
should be left to the conscientious convictions of
parents bringing their childi-en to Christ's holy bap-
tism. As the law of the Church now stands, no
minister is authorized to baptize an infant, except on
the condition of compliance with these unauthorized
requirements. No Church has a right to impose
such a condition.

" lY. We cannot conclude this declaration of our
convictions with reference to the necessity of litur-
gical revision, and the particulars which are abso-
lutely needful for such a measure of revision as we
could accept, without expressing our determined
adherence to the Irish Church. We love our Church
for her faithful testimony to the essential truths of

PRIESTHOOD. 109

Christianity contained in her Articles, and her equally-
faithful testimony against the manifold errors and
superstitions wherewith the fallen Church of Eome
has corrupted and obscured the Gospel of the grace
of God. We approve of her episcopal government
and threefold order of ministry, as justified by apo-
stolic precedent. We accept her parochial arrange-
ments as the best organization for effectual opposition
to the hierarchy and priesthood of apostate Bome,
and for the universal diffusion throughout the land
of the knowledge of scriptural truth. We admire
her admirable Liturgy, fervent without fanaticism,
and sublime in its simplicity, expressing the deepest
devotional feelings of a regenerated soul; and be-
cause we prize our Prayer-book, we are anxious to
divest it of the incrustations of error, which, in the
natural tendency of our fallen nature, have from
time to time grown upon it, marring its beauty, and
diminishing its efficiency.

■* We regard the objectionable statements to which
we have alluded in this declaration, and all of which
have been foisted into our Prayer-book, or intensified
in the three revisions to which it has been subjected
since the time of Edward YL, as ' the dead flies,
which cause the ointment of the apothecary to send
forth a stinking savour.' Are we, therefore, because
we abhor the conservatism of corruption which would
retain these extraneous elements in our Liturgy, to

110 PRIESTHOOD.

be lield up to odium as levelling revolutionists who
would ' tear the Prayer-book to tatters ' ? In the
consciousness of the injustice of such a charge we
can patiently endure it, in the full persuasion that if
our suggestions be carried out by the Greneral Synod,
the borders of our Church, by God's blessing, will
be enlarged, and her efficiency promoted, to an
extent which will make her such an instrument of
good as she has never hitherto been in the midst of
this land."

PART VII.

Present Means of Gospel Instruction in
our Great Cities inadequate.

Need of Lay Preaching.

PART VII.

Present Means of Gospel Instruction in
our Great Cities inadequate.

Need of Lay Preaching.

Feom what has been proved, it appears that preach-
ing of the Grospel by unordained believers is lawful
and necessary ; and especially so when, at our very
door, great masses of our fellow-men are lying in
ignorance of a Saviour. If forbidden and hindered
from thus preaching by the pastors and rulers of
Churches, lay-brethren must preach Christ in spite
of all such opposition. They must obey God rather
than man. If zealous brethren are thus called to
preach, we believe that they should try to labour in
concurrence with their pastors and their Church, and
to ask their prayers. In this way, much enmity and
needless divisions might often be avoided ; and we
should not see those isolated efforts that earnest
brethren often carry on, and allow to drift ?nto new

Churches.

I

1 14 GOSPEL mSTR UCTION INADEQ UA TE.

It is but a truism to say that the great populations
of our large towns have no sufficient number of set-
tled and ordained pastors to teach them the truth of
God. And if there were settled pastors in ten-fold
larger numbers than at present, it does not follow
either that those pastors would in general be qualified
to interest our rougher people, or that the people
would place themselves under the present system of
pastoral teaching.

"Evangelists," or preachers, are the class of men
needed to go forth into our crowded streets. Such
preachers must go to the people; they cannot wait
for the people to go to them. The pastor's office
and work pre-suppose a Church already gathered,
amongst whom he ministers. The evangelist goes
forth in order to gather souls into a Church ; or
rather, he goes to gather souls to the knowledge of a
Saviour.

London naturally first strikes us, on account of its
enormous population and their crying spiritual need.
From the new census, as stated generally, more than
three millions and a quarter of our fellow- creatures
inhabit the vast area called London. That area in-
cludes all the Surrey side of the Thames river, to-
gether with a part of Essex and of Kent. I cannot
anywhere get accurate returns of the number of
clergymen, and of Trinitarian Nonconformists, who
minister in churches and chapels throughout this

GOSPEL INSTR UCTION INADEQ UA TE. 115

mighty population ; neither can I get accurate statis-
tics of the number of people who generally attend
churches or chapels. According to the ''London
Diocesan Year-book," the number of clergy who
officiate within the Bishop of London's diocese, is
only 1270. But I cannot ascertain what number of
clergymen act in the Winchester diocese, nor of those
who act under the Bishop of Rochester, within the
Essex and Kent districts. Owing to the large area
covered by the Surrey, Kent, and Essex sides of the
Thames, we must suppose the clergy in those districts
as numerous as the •* London" clergy. We may
reckon the whole number of clergymen at 2,500.
We first deduct from the whole population 200,000
Eoman Catholics (chiefly Irish) ; from the three
millions thus left, we deduct one third for children
up to the age of eleven years. Most of such children
from six to eleven years are taught in Sunday-schools.
Two millions then of adult and young people remain
to call for religious instruction.

The number of Episcopal clergy, as I have said,
may be put down at 2,500 ; the number of Trinitarian
Nonconformist ministers I reckon to be about 500.
I judge this from the "Year-books" of the Metho-
dist, Baptist, and Congregational bodies. Whether
Presbyterians, Primitive Methodists, and smaller
Christian bodies, make up 100 more ministers, I
cannot say : probably they do so. The total number

116 GOSPEL INSTR UCTION INADEQ UA TE.

of regular ministers will thus be 3,100. If we divide
the two millions of people by 3,100 ministers, a con-
gregation of 650 people might be taught by each
minister. But we know that ministers and people
cannot be thus equally assorted : and it does not
follow that all these ministers are properly qualified
to teach these people, even if the people could be
brought to listen to their teaching.

Strictly speaking, we must reckon on a third part
of the child population of London as included in the
various congregations over which ministers preside.
We must thus add more than 300,000 persons to the
aggregate of supposed congregations.

Another general test by which to try the number
of people in London who hear religious teaching, is
by ascertaining the number of sittings which churches
and chapels contain, and the average number of peo-
ple who occupy them on Sundays. But here we can
get no accurate information. We know that many
of the larger churches hold from 1,500 to 2,000 sit-
ters ; many small chapels hold only from 300 to 400.
If we reckon the whole number of churches and
chapels to be 1,000 (a large estimate), and if we
reckon that on an average 600 people attend each of
these churches and chapels on Sundays, there would
be 600,000 people so attending. But does any common
observer believe that this large number do regularly
fill these sanctuaries of London ? Let such observer

GOSPEL INSTRUCTION INADEQUA TE. 117

walk along the "New Cut," in Soiithwark, on a
Sunday morning, at eleven a.m. ; or let Mm at that
same hour look at the masses of people that stream
along Whitechapel Eoad. In the '* New Cut " there
is a crowded market. In either case let the observer
see the hives of men and women there swarming, —
buying, selling, lounging : he will see enough to
convince him that a great part of London people
neglect all religious ordinances; that they attend
neither chapel nor church. In other words, if out of
the three million adults and children, one million of
them both attend some religious teaching occasionally
or constantly ; and if we put aside from this number
500,000 as infants, aged and sick people; how are
the million and a half yet to be accounted for ? This
million and a half have practically nothing to do with
churches, chapels, or their ministers, except in the
matters of baptism, marriage, and burial.

Then of what order is the average teaching given
by these 2,400 ministers, as far as it regards the
little educated classes and the poor ? Are not a large
part of the ^^ sermons ^''^ read or repeated, clothed in
words and with phrases which our poorer brethren
cannot understand? If so, "he that speaketh,"
speaketh almost in a " tongue unhxown " to his
hearers. Then in the larger parish churches or
chapels, where are the poorer brethren placed ?
Grenerally in the sittings most distant from the

118 GOSPEL INSTRUCTION INADEQ UA TE.

minister, and where hearing is the most difficult.
St. James's description is generally verified. We
say '* to the brother of low degree, Sit thou yonder ! "
while / (the richer, ''with the gold ring," the well-
dressed, and the more educated) say, "I sit JiereT^
Sometimes indeed the poorer brethren are billeted
on the public gaze, as poor, in certain short cramped
benches, which fill up part of the middle interval
between the pews of the rich. Could we persuade,
could we even ask our poorer brethren, now loitering
the Sabbath away, to go into such ^^free seats"?
Could we honesty say to the bystanders in the "New
Cut," or in Whitechapel, "You ought, my friends,
to be in a church or chapel this morning " ? " Pray,
sir, teU us in what church or chapel one fiftieth part
of us could find room ? " Or would not some shrewd
listener to our Pharisaic question reply, "Go and
preach to your rich people, who attend these churches
and chapels, to build plain rooms for us, and send
plain speakers to teach us the plain truths of the
Gospel. We shall then believe that you are in real
earnest about our souls."

And what could we answer to this just reply, but
that the mass of our rich and great men do attend
their churches and chapels, but that they are mostly
"religious to themselves.'''' They have given large
sums, it may be, to build ornamental churches;
but they have left no money for building plain

NEED OF LA Y PREACHING. 119

rooms, in which plain evangelists could speak the
Gospel.

But London has other means of giving Gospel
instruction to the people, it may be said, than what
1,000 churches and chapels can give. We have about
330 missionary teachers sent out by the ''London City
Mission." These are all good, earnest men. They
are chosen on account of their piety, and their general
fitness for visiting and speaking to our workmen
population. These missionaries belong to different
Protestant (Trinitarian) Churches. There is also a
'' Church of England Scripture Readerh Society," the
number of whose ''readers" I am not now able to
ascertain. It is not, however, large. The Church of
England '•^ Lay Helpers^ Association" appears also to
send out a good many godly, earnest men, for the
purpose of visiting and reading Scripture to many
of the poorer brethren whom the clergyman cannot
reach. We cannot suppose that less than 500 city
missionaries and "readers" visit through a large
part of London. If we reckon four persons as an
average family, and three or four hundred families
as being visited and instructed by every missionary
or reader, we have an aggregate of 1,200,000 adult
persons instructed more or less in the truths of re-
ligion; at least, some offer of teaching is made to
them; and the destitution of religious teaching is
thus not so crying as at first sight it seemed to be.

120 NEED OF LAY PREACHING.

Again: we must not forget that from eightj?' to
one hundred zealous men, under the " Open-air Mis-
sion," preach through many parts of London during
the fine weather ; and that thus tens of thousands hear
of a Saviour's message, who probably would never
hear it within church or chapel, nor even listen to the
missionary when he visited their houses. I believe
such evangelism to be, under all our present circum-
stances, the most likely to reach the hearts of what
we must call *' irreligious street-hearers." Then we
have preaching in several London theatres during
part of the year. Ordained ministers and unor-
dained "evangelists" have lifted up a Saviour's
cross to multitudes within those walls. Sometimes
from ten to fifteen thousand people have thus been
got together on a Sunday evening. The listeners
who have attended these services have been, to a
large extent, drawn from that class which goes
neither to church nor chapel. But they have lis-
tened reverently; and, we trust, in numerous cases
''believed, to the saving of the soul."

We may next take Manchester, our second city, as
a second illustration of our subject. According to
the census of 1871, the whole population of Man-
chester and its neighbour townships must be 800,000
souls. As in the case of London, from these 800,000
we at once deduct for infants and children up to a
certain age, one third ; or, in round numbers, 270,000

NEED OF LA Y PREACHING. 121

persons. For Boman Catholics and others who would
not receive religious instruction from our evangelists,
we may, I believe, deduct one fifth, — that is to say,
160,000 more: to this add 270,000: total deducted,
430,000. Add to these 77,000 provided for in Church
of England churches, and 40,000 more accommodated
in Nonconformist chapels, we deduct 117,000 more
from the gross total. That is to say, we have a residue
of 303,000 souls of adult men and women who do
not attend church or chapel, and for whose attendance,
did they wish it, no sittings could be at present pro-
vided. From the ''Diocesan Year-book" of 1871,
I find that there are seventy-seven churches and
licensed rooms under the Established Church; and
that about 77,000 sittings are provided in these
buildings. From the four large Nonconformist
Church returns, I find about 40,000 sittings provided
by Methodist, Baptist, Independent, and Presbyterian
chapels. The total sittings therefore, if oecupied by
sitters, would make out 117,000 attendants. We
know however, practically, that in very few churches
or chapels are all seats ever filled.

In Manchester, too, as well as in London, we have
our fair proportion of '* city missionaries," ** Scripture
readers," and "district visitors." The two latter
classes are generally sent out by some distinct
religious communion. "We have above ninety city
missionaries. Their whole time is given to the

122 NEED OF LA Y PREACHING.

instruction of the thousands who generally neglect
the outward ordinances of religion. If on the average
each missionary visits 300 families of four persons
each, 1,200 persons are thus visited by each mis-
sionary ; or, in the aggregate, there will be, in round
numbers, about 110,000 persons thus visited and in-
structed : and if fifty Scripture readers and visitors,
employed by clergymen, Nonconformist ministers,
and " laymen," be added to the missionaries, 60,000
more persons' may receive, if they choose, some reli-
gious teaching. Out of the 303,000, therefore, whom
we reckon as non-attendants at church or chapel,
80,000 or 90,000 may be deducted as occasional
hearers of the *' Word of Life." The number
of people thus left without any systematic teaching
may be reduced from 303,000 to 295,000 souls.
But what a vast number is this of immortal creatures
left almost unevangelized in one city! Upon the
labours of our brethren in the London and Manches-
ter **Oity Missions," I write with great confidence:
I believe that the Divine blessing has come down,
and is coming down, upon them most richly. For
their piety, their clear view of Gospel truth, their
kind manners, and their good sense, the missionaries
are chosen by discerning Christian men. They are
also truly voluntary workers ; for though they receive
a moderate payment for their service, it is but small
compared with that which a diff'erent employment

NEED OF LA Y PREACHING. 123

might bring them, had they chosen one. The special
advantage which such missionaries have over all
parochial clergymen or Nonconformist ministers, is
that they give time sufficient for talking to each per-
son whom they visit, time to explain Scripture to them
(if asked), time to show sympathy with them in their
sorrows, and time to deal with each case or character
which comes before them. Still, with all these means
of religious instruction in London and Manchester,
and we may add, all our great manufacturing towns,
we return to the great fact before us. A million and
a half in London, and 300,000 in Manchester, are
practically living in spiritual ignorance ; such spirit-
ual ignorance, that their outward habits, conduct,
and appearance, bespeak either gross indifference
to Divine truth, or opposition to it. Look at the
surging mass of people who on Sunday crowd along
Demsgate, in Manchester, just as the London people
crowd Whitechapel Eoad, and you need no further
proofs of what I say.

What then is to be done ? I return to the point
from which I set out at the beginning of this treatise.
"Evangelists" — lay evangelists — must go forth in
numbers to preach the news of saving mercy to these
now unevangelized masses. I say lay preachers, be-
cause (1) all earnest ordained pastors have little or no
time to leave their stated duties in their Churches ;
(2) because in the present state of disordered feel-

124 NEED OF LAY PREACHING.

ing wliicli reigns amongst these city masses, tliose
preachers are more likely to be listened to with res-
pect who are hnown to labour for their souls' good
unpaid, and as having no official titles — being neither
"parsons nor priests" — names which these people
generally give to regular ministers of the Word. We
may, I know, lament or condemn such views and such
words as these, so commonly used by our city masses.
Nevertheless, the fact remains. Ministers are deemed
to be paid professional men. Unpaid preachers,
whether gentlemen, shopkeepers, or artizans, who
are known to have no motive but the doing of good,
these people are more predisposed to hear. And did
not the great Apostle bow to such prejudices, when
he told even professed believers, at Thessalonica, that
himself, Silas, and Timotheus, '^freely preached to
them the Gospel of Gtod," and " would not be charge-
able" to them as the Apostles of Christ (1 Thes.
ii. 9) ; or when he learned the humble art of '' tent-
making," and wrought with his own hands for his
daily bread, rather than ask a small pittance from
the Church. (Acts xviii. 3.)

** Are we" tempted sometimes to say, "A certain
amount of Divine truth is within the reach of the
millions in London, and the hundreds of thousands
in Manchester ? What with the indoor and outdoor
preachings, all these people might hear some truth,
however little. That truth is near at their doors.

NEED OF LA Y PREACHING. 125

And if these masses will not avail themselves of any
of these teachings, indoors or outdoors, the guilt lies
with themselves. We have done our best ; we are
not answerable for doing more," etc.

Our consciences ought to give a speedy answer to
such cold idleness : "Love thy neighbour as thyself."
Where and what should we now be had we been
left to gather our religion from one or more stray
addresses, given forth by an out-door preacher at the
corner of a London street ? Where should we be
if our parents had set us no example of prayer,
Scripture reading, and attendance on some religious
teaching ? Had we been taught that morals consisted
in keeping out of prison, and as much of good con-
duct as would help us on in the world, do we
believe that a few chance preachings would have led
us to heartfelt, genuine conversion from sin to God ?
It might have been so. Such conversions have been ;
but such cases are almost miracles !

The best way of judging the process of man's
conversion to God, is to look back on our own past
lives. We perhaps had the unspeakable blessing of
a pious, praying mother : we had then ''precept on
precept" in our childhood from the tenderest lips.
We perhaps had religious teaching at a school : we
perhaps were taken to hear the true Gospel preached
by some holy minister. All these privileges were
perhaps little valued by us at the time. The heart

126 NEED OF LAY PREACFIIXG.

was little affected. It was not perhaps till manhood
and the world's trouble came upon us, that the words
of a praying mother, and of a faithful minister, re-
turned with overwhelming power to us. Then we
felt that we had not had too much of religious teaching.

And why should we judge differently for our poorer
brother ? Are we to be satisfied that he should hear
a chance outdoor address now and then ? Does he
not need some regular teaching as well as ourselves ?
Shall we not try to supply his soul with more of that
bread which has nourished our own, perhaps from
childhood ?

I grant this difference between rich and poor : viz.,
that the richer classes seem to need a ten-fold religious
teaching to that which those need who work for daily
bread. The richer are, upon inspired authority, more
apt to have their '' hearts over-charged with surfeiting
and drunkenness and cares of this life " (Luke xxi.
34); 'Hhe cares of this world, and the deceitfulness
of riches, and the lusts of other things" (Mark iv. 19) :
so that to the rich man, however correct be his out-
ward religion and his inner doctrine, his entrance to
heaven must ever be as the camel's — prostrate, ere he
can pass through the ''needle's eye" of humiliation
and self-denial. It is "easier for a camel " to 'pass
that low portal, than for "the rich man," etc.

To close this subject of outdoor preaching, recollect
how small a number out of the London million and

yEED OF LA Y PREACHIXG. 127

half gather to listen to an outdoor preacher. If fifty
evangelists were to preach on a given Sunday, in
London, outdoors, they would form one preacher for
every 30,000 souls ! We know that 500 persons are a
large congregation to listen to any outdoor preacher.
That is to say, if fifty preachers could all address 500
people at the same time, there would only be 25,000
persons preached to out of 1,500,000 : one sixth part
of the whole unevangelized mass. What then, in
sight of these masses of men almost neglected, can
we or ought we to do ?

(1) Christian men of wealth and influence ought
to build plain rooms, in which the Gospel might be
taught simply and earnestly to the poor. At present
their general practice is to spend large sums in
building handsome churches and chapels. All this
money so willingly given towards outward grandeur
and beauty, suits in general the rich and the educated.
We complain that so much money is spent for the
rich, so little for the poor. We want the money
not for grand buildings, but in order to pay zealous
ministers who will teach our people the Gospel truth.
I regard then as scj^uandered on ornament the large
sum of money which has been spent on towers, spires,
and mediaeval architecture ; whilst scarcely any money
has been given to endow zealous ministers who might
preach to the poor in plain buildings or out of doors.
The late Eev. Hugh Stowell (of Salford), during

128 NEED OF LA Y PREACHING.

the year before his departure, told me what he desired
for the good of the masses who inhabited his district,
and who could not be visited, nor be accommodated
within a church. It was the building of a plain
school-room ; the sittings free, or nearly so ; and the
proper payment of a zealous minister, who might
attract many of the neglected people by real, heart-
felt, plain speaking. Such was the " memorial church '*
he said he desired to be built after his decease.
Should the poor gather round their teacher, and he
not rapidly leave his flock, a church on a larger scale
might come afterwards. Mr. S.'s wishes were not
carried out ; and the elegant church, which exhausted
most of the subscription money, contains no larger
proportion of the poor than attend other elegant
churches ; that is to say, a very small proportion.
We want plain huildings, free sittings, living, earnest
preaching, and short services. Will the rich merchants
and land-owners come forward thus to provide the
Gospel for the poor ?

(2) We want our earnest clergymen and Non-
conformist ministers to encourage godly laymen from
amongst their flocks to go forth as evangelists. Instead
of keeping up a paltry fear lest the lay preacher
should be popular, let them simply weigh the actual
state of the thousands near them, and their own
hopeless inability to minister to their souls. If
ministers would thus try to draw out the "gifts" of

NEED OF LA Y PREACHING. 129

godly laymen, they would bind many hearts nearer
to themselves, which otherwise may be distanced and
separated from themselves by cold neglect. Ministers
may be assured that no great number of laymen will
apply for their sanction in outdoor preaching. Cer-
tainly no mere worldly desire of praise and admiration
will lead men to lift up their voices in a London or
Manchester thoroughfare, in order to speak of things
the most sacred, amidst sounds and sights the most
uncongenial and disgusting, amidst the clatter of
wheels, and often in sight of the gin-palace and its
reeling company. Each earnest minister should
gather around him and instruct a '* school of pro-
phets" for his district, — some for indoor meetings,
and some for the streets. Many earnest lay preachers,
ready to brave all difficulties and hindrances, are yet
young believers. Their views of Divine truth, how-
ever glowing and bright, are often one-sided and
ill-balanced ; their statements are often crude. The
counsel and sympathy of that minister who had led
them to living truth, might be of the greatest use to
such evangelists as these. They would also go forth
to preach, followed by the prayers of the Church to
which they belonged. Some brethren of that Church
would go with them. Still their one object would be
not to preach their Church as the best or only one :
" The Lord Jesus Christ " is their All in All !
On the other hand, we feel that zealous laymen,

K

130 NEED OF LA Y PREACHING.

who have both time to spare and gifts for such
ministry, — such good men should pay some deference
to the ministers of that Church with which they are
in communion. Before such good laymen go forth
thus to evangelize, they should consult, if possible,
their minister's feelings. They should ask his con-
sent and sanction of the object which, they have in
view : viz., the ivish not to establish a new Church or sect,
but simply to speak of a Saviour to those who are
sunk in irreligion.

Too many earnest evangelists, while repudiating
the making of a sect, have fallen into a sect insensibly.
This has generally followed the celebration of the
Holy Communion by such evangelists. Though I
can attach no holiness to that Diyiis^e rite, because
of the ministers who preside over it (whether Epis-
copal or Presbyterian) ; yet I believe that godly
ministers are appointed to hold the keys of Church
discipline, and that their high office justly entitles
them to preside over that which is most solemn in
Church-worship, — not to say that many young and
zealous evangelists are often led to consider high
professions of conversion and much emotional religion
as superior to that which is more quiet, but in reality
more deep, in the view of those brethren who are
more cautious and more instructed than themselves.

We have vindicated, I believe truly, the right and
duty of laymen or brethren to teach and preach the

NEED OF LA Y PREACHING. 131

Gospel. We would also vindicate the right of godly
pastors to that deference and respect which their
constant "labouring in the Word and doctrine"
deserves from preaching brethren. A layman, how-
ever zealous he be to bless the ignorant, will yet be
modest and considerate towards the pastor who is as
zealous as himself to do good, but who cannot so
easily leave his beaten track to evangelize. Under
our present distorted system of Church oflB.ce-bearers
and Church work, faithful pastors, who minister in
large town districts, have burdens laid upon them
which they cannot long bear. Where lay evangelists
belong to the same communion in which these pastors
labour so hard, evangelists should offer their services
as a '' help," and not as in apparent disregard of, and
opposition to, their pastors.

"I beseech you, brethren, to know them which
labour among you, and are over you in the Lord,
and admonish you ; and to esteem them very highly
in love for their work's sake." (1 Thess. v. 12, 13.)

''Remember them who have the rule over you,
who have spoken unto you the Word of God."
(Heb. xii. 7.)

"Let all your doings be done with charity." (1
Cor. xvi. 14.)

PART VIII.

Appeal to the Gentry.

PART VIII.

Appeal to the Gentry.

In looking at those myriads of our fellow-men, as
they surge along Whitechapel or Deansgate, what
earnest believer in God's truth but longs to stop and
preach Christ unto them ? Who wishes not that he
had a voice to reach them, and a spiritual power to
arrest their attention? At the moment we gaze
upon them, we know that all the ministers of London
and Manchester cannot reach them, and that most of
the men whom we see seldom hear the missionary's
or visitor's voices, because they are absent from
their homes when the missionary calls.

This desire on our part is but the common-sense of
religion within us. It is but the faint reflection of
our Sayiotjr's mind : *' When He saw the multitudes
He was moved with compassion, because they fainted,
and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shep-
herd." (Matt. ix. 36.)

What then? We want hundreds, thousands of
lay, of unordained preachers, to do what the ordained

136 APPEAL TO THE GENTRY.

cannot do. We want them out of all classes of men.
We want godly workmen, we want tradesmen, we
want gentlemen; but we especially want the latter
class — the educated and refined gentleman. And why ?
We want him for the purpose of a double sermon.
The rich brother has not only to preach to the people
because he loves their souls, he has also to preach
the practice of that Gospel he would enforce. He has
to show that the rich brother can take some trouble,
can give part of his leisure time, can ** go about
doing good." It is to higher practice, showed forth
by those called " religious people " amongst the rich
and the refined, that our shrewd brethren of the
factory look for. "If these rich religious people pity
us so deeply, and speak of us at public meetings * as
so degraded and irreligious,' why do they not come
forth to warn and instruct us ? "

Blessed be God, that He has graciously enabled
some of our nobles and gentry to take part in preach-
ing the gospel to these masses of men. Still their
number is at present so small, as to prove them the
exception amidst their class.

Both in London and Manchester we find that the
far greater number of out-door preachers to the
street population is from the apprentices, the trades-
men, and the clerks. After their week's full labour
they give that Sabbath, which they might spend in
partial rest, to the calling of their fellow-men to

APPEAL TO THE GENTRY. 137

repentance and to heaven. What then keeps back
our godly rich men from doing the same ? What
good to souls might not fifty rich Christian men
out of one hundred thus accomplish I We must
all feel, upon reflection, that it is not so much the truth
alone preached which goes to the hearer's heart. It
is the preacher's own character, his life, his known
motives for doing good.

Before I make a short final appeal to our "higher
classes" upon this subject, I will place before the
reader an extract from the Times newspaper, which
will, I believe, commend itself to his judgment. It
is dated October 13th, in 1871. A leading article
appeared that day upon the Church Congress, then
holding its sittings at Nottingham. Much was said
at that Congress about the drunkenness, the general
depravity, &c., of our great city populations : How
were such evils to be met, was the problem. The
Times first states that, —

*' The masses of our people are not worse than
when Galilaean fishermen went forth to evangelize
them. There is a remedy which does, in a great
measure, meet the difficulty, and which is ready to
hand, if Church Congresses and Diocesan Synods
and Conferences are really willing to put out their
hand to take it, — if they are 'prepared., in sliort^ to do
anything hut talk. A good deal has been said lately
about the use of Laymen. Lay assistants, lay readers.

138 APPEAL TO THE GENTRY.

lay almoners, and now, at last, of lay Pkeachees . . .
Of course this really comes to a new order of minis-
ters ; free to exercise secular callings, and incapable
of what is called ' the cure of souls ; ' not tied to
residence, and generally enjoying more liberty than
it is expedient to allow to those who undertake the
* cure of souls.' No one can doubt that in many
parishes, particularly in town parishes, there are
many laymen well qualified, in all respects to assist
the clergyman in his work .... How is the work to
be done ? How are the persons to do it ? Almost
everywhere are to be found gentlemen, and others of
at least an educated class, who are good Christians,
who are scholars, probably better scholars than their
own clergy ; who can read well, and speak well, and
whose lives are a sufficient testimony to their disin-
terested zeal. Nobody with the Apostolic JEpistles in his
hands can say that these persons may not teach, preach, and
pray in public, even if they are still laymen in the ordinary
sense of that word. Take a parish of 20,000 souls, with
the Incumbent always engaged .... and the Curate
.... are we to wait .... when there are half a dozen
laymen qualified to take their part in the Spiritual
duties of a parish ? Of course they would have to be
recognised. It would be necessary, and they would
wish it themselves. If such a suggestion .... seems
to infringe on a sacred monopoly, we can only say that
without some such plan, the work will never be done,''^ &c.

APPEAL TO THE GENTRY. 139

I commend these common-sense conclusions from
** the Apostolic Epistles" to many readers. It will
not be thought that the Times advocates fanatical
''ranting" or "sensational excitement " in preach-
ing. The Times advocates a plain Scriptural duty —
the duty which these pages have been written to
prove and to enforce.

Concluding Appeal to the Christian Gentry.

Let us ask ourselves the simple, but truly solemn
question : " When we die what soul on earth will be
left behind us the better for our preaching or ex-
ample ? Or, to go further, — could we hope to meet
one soul in heaven who coidd welcome us with those
transporting words, * Thou wast as an angel of God
upon that dark sea below, to guide me to a Saviour
and to glory.' " I cannot but ask the question of
others and of myself. What might not the Christian
Gentry, scattered through the various Churches, do
for the good of souls, did we employ those "gifts"
with which we have been entrusted, in the best way ?
It must be owned that, as a class, we hold out but a
feeble light, and hold but a low position. Our means
of obtaining Divine knowledge, and of spreading
that knowledge, are almost unexampled. From
Sabbath to Sabbath most of us listen to a

140

APPEAL TO THE GENTRY.

Gospel that our minister teaches faithfully. Some
of us hear it from ministers who enforce that
Gospel with commanding power of argument and
persuasion. We would not lose a sermon. But as
we go home from our Chapel or Church does not the
question knock at our hearts' door, " What are we
doing for the ignorant neighbours who live near
us?" Perhaps we attend some Church-service in
London, in Liverpool, or in Manchester. Our path
homewards may take us through some of those back
streets and courts where the neglected neighbours
live. Everything looks begrimed and sad as we
hurry through them. Women sitting idle on their
door-steps ; men smoking and reading newspapers ;
lads, above the school age, playing upon patches of
ground still unbuilt upon. Do we go to our quiet
home, with all its charm and luxury, — to our comfort-
able dinners and pleasant gardens, — and do we resolve
to do nothing on that sacred day for our poor neigh-
bours' souls ? Or can we really look upon their sad
state, and coolly say, " Poor degraded beings ! "
And, Why does not the clergyman or his curate get
amongst them ? If they have no time, why not the
city missionary, towards whose salary we give our
yearly subscription ? Why not the Scripture-reader,
whom we also help to maintain?" &c. Can we
honestly thus speak ?

If we thus sp eak of clergymen who, as we know.

APPEAL TO THE GENTRY. 141

in large towns have the nominal charge of ten to
13,000 people, we know that they are abeady ex-
hausted by labour. Like the Pharisees then of old,
*' we bind bui-dens" on the clergy ** too heavy to be
borne ; " yet we ourselves touch *' them not with one
of our fingers." Oh, let us not think that clergymen,
missionaries, Scripture-readers, are to act for us in
all labours of love ; and that if we pay them our
money subscriptions, we are not answerable for any
personal service. In the Apostles' Letters to the
Churches, there is no such exemption from visiting
and teaching our poorer brethren, because we happen
to he of what is called *' an Upper Class ^^ of human
heingsy One law of brotherly love streamed forth
upon rich and poor from the Passover-room of Jeru-
salem. "If I, your Lord and Master, have washed
your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's feet.
Tor I have given you an example, that ye should do
AS I have done unto you." (John xiii. 14.) Per-
haps the only thing which may stir the hearts of
some degraded brethren living in those crowded
streets, is the going amongst them by the rich mer-
chant, whose money accumulates through those
workmen's toil ; or by the rich landowner, whose
" fortune " and that of his children grows to a giant
rental through the covering of his building-land by
new streets and a thickened population. *' The
brother of low degree " may then begin to see that

142 APPEAL TO THE GENTPY.

rich Christians are not too selfish to sit and talk with
him about his earthly sorrows and his eternal wel-
fare. Our poorer brethren do not measure our love
to them by the subscriptions that we pay to city
missionaries or to hospitals ; such gifts on our part
cost us no personal trouble or sacrifice. Our poor
do not read printed reports, nor look to see if our
names figure high or low upon the list of donors.
But when we sit down and converse with him in his
own house, or when we visit the sick child or wife
upstairs, many a stern factory workman or rugged
collier may begin to think that there is reality in the
Gospel, because it brings down man's lofty looks,
and can lead the self-indulgent seeker of money or
pleasure, to give not only money which costs him
nothing, not merely a little time spent at a charity
committee, but somewhat of his heart and sympathy,
with those fellow-men who have not had our vast
advantages of religious teaching and family purity,
but who have lived from their childhood amidst scenes
of drunkenness, profanity, and profligacy.

" Wash one another's feet." By the *' washing of
a brother's feet," we understand the efi'ort to rid
a fallen fellow-man of some loathsome corruption :
such would be a pleading with the drunkard by kind
warning in friendly conversation. It may cost us
some repulsive effort to sit with one whose dwelling
and whose children are squalid through his unclean

APPEAL TO THE GENTRY. 143

habits ; but who can say how kind words from such
a quarter would speak to the heart ?

Is it, then, that men are too rich, Ivo nolle in title,
either to visit the fatherless and widow, or to visit
and teach our poorer brethren ? Why so put off our
Christian duty ? Too rich, too nolle ! Do we say (as
I have often heard it said), *'It is better for paid
visitors, whose rank in life brings them nearer to the
poor, to visit the poor : if 7 go into a cottage, the
poor woman's eye is turned directly to my money,
and * ho^ much shall I get from him ' ? " Do we say,
*'The paid visitor is not so easily deceived by false
stories of distress as / am. The visitor understands
the habits and circumstances of the poor : he will
inquire as /cannot do. He will then report to me
who are proper objects for money relief : I shall then
look to such applicants," &c., &c.

There is force in these statements, but they can-
not obviate nor override the solemn words of God.
The great day of account draws on. As individuals
we shall be judged (Rom. xiv. 10 — 12), — not by
what others did of good on our behalf, but for what
we ourselves have done of good. ** I was sick, and
ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto
me." (Matt. xxv. 36.) The word is not, ''You
visited me through others : you were too rich, too
noble to go yourselves into a prisoner's dungeon, or
a poor man's bed-room." Such reasons against our

144 APPEAL TO THE GENTRY.

"coming down," find no favour here. The word is,
"Let the rich (brother) rejoice in that he is made
lowy (James i. 9.) " Exhort them (the believers)
who are rich in this world, that they be not high-
minded . . . that they do good, that they be rich in
good works, ready to distribute, willing to communi-
cate," &c. (1 Tim. vi. 17—19.) And what "good
works " can the rich brother do " to poorer brethren "
more good than the doing of good to their souls ?
We should be rich in such good works, "willing to
distribute " the bread of life, and " ready to com-
municate" of the blessings unspeakable that we our-
selves enjoy, of sin forgiven and a hope full of
immortality.

It is quite possible that many godly "rich and
titled" believers honestly think that by visiting and
speaking of divine truth to poorer brethren, they
may encourage a religious profession which is hollow
and mercenary. But it is equally important for the
rich man to learn his own real motives for neglecting
a plain duty. Are we not a little afraid of appearing
niggardly towards poor men, when it is known how
much we spend upon our houses, our gardens, our
luxuries ?

Of course we know that many a godly brother or
sister of the " higher ranks " is justly disabled from
thus visiting and teaching the poorer : they may be
themselves infirm and sick ; they may live at too

APPEAL TO THE GENTRY. 145

great a distance. Their hearts travel in sympathy
to the afflicted, where their feet cannot walk: "It
was well that it was in thine heart." By Him
who " judgeth righteously " we know that th^eir
loving hearts will be commended : '' She hath
done what she could." But it is surely otherwise
with those rich Christians whose mental and bodily
strength enables them to attend their bank, or mer-
cantile office, or brewery, during the six week days,
and thus constantly to increase their store. Surely
two hours of the Lord's Day, afternoon or evening,
they might leave their palaces in some grand London
square, in order to visit some court or lane not far
distant, where hundreds pine in ignorance. Surely
they could give up their pew-sittings at the evening
Sunday-service, for the use of some who need instruc-
tion. Religious •'' services," even the most spiritual
preachings, are but means to attain a great end : viz.,
our growth in holy action, as well as in holy know-
ledge or holy desires. What good in repeated
" Sermons " and Liturgies which do not help to drive
us out of our false ease and indolence ?

But what may we say of the gentry and nobles
who have no hard weekly work to do in what we
call ''business," or what we call a "profession"?
(I speak of those who have received the Gospel into
their hearts : I trust there are many thousands
such). When such good men live in London "for

L

146 APPEAL TO THE GENTRY.

the season," what spiritual good do they attempt
for the unevangelized ? Do they go only to min-
gle in the society of their equals, or go to minister
to those below themselves? Do they go to enjoy
what are called ''the reasonable pleasures" of Lon-
don, and leave nothing behind of real good to souls ?
I confess that what, thirty years ago, I saw of what
is called " high religious society," gave me the
most dreary view of its inability to further vital
religion in my own heart or in that of others. And
when after the groaning dinner, and evening party ,
we were asked to join in the hymn of "Pilgrims and
strangers, travelling through this wilderness,^^ I felt
afraid of travelling through a land of gilded Phari-
seeism, and of speaking against worldliness whilst I
was clothed in its most refined form. Conscience
whispered that we were trying to make the most of
loth worlds. It was an escape to leave the place.

When these gentry and nobles return to their
country mansions, I trust it may be to work actively
for the spiritual good of the poor around them. But
I believe I do not exaggerate when I say that but
very few of them go forth to teach or preach the
Grospel. Many of our gentry can speak fluently at
political meetings or on county business. Would that
they spoke life-giving words of eternal truth in the
cottage, or in the school-room, or in the field !

As to Lay Preaching, rich brethren, no more than

APPEAL TO THE GE^'TBY. 147

poor bretkren, can be all "preachers" in the wider
sense of that term. But if so, cannot rich brethren
pay an additional missionary who can preach the
glad tidings ? Cannot rich believers who belong <to
the Church of England, pay an additional curate to
help their minister, and to preach the simple truth
in school-rooms or out of doors ? Cannot all wealthy
brethren do far more than they now do, to spread
their Sayiotjb's kingdom upon earth ?

Oh, could we stir up rich and educated believers
thus to act amidst our large town populations, might
we not hope that thousands would see the transport-
ing vision of God in Christ ? Might we not hope
that *' rivers would break forth in the desert, and
streams in the dry places ! "

Let us make the trial. Let us leave the gilded
drawing-room and the easy arm-chair. Let us leave
the insipid talk of the lips ahc^ut religion, which
''tendeth only to poverty," and ends in no vigorous
worJc. Let us pray that we may leave the city, or
town, something better than we found it.

APPENDIX.

(I.) TO Paet VI.

On the motiues which led Queen Elizabeth to
reject some of the Improuements which the
second Prayer-boo/i of Edward VI. contained,
and to prefer his first Book.

(See Cardwell's " Conferences," p. 34 — 36.)

" Feom this comparison, then, of the two Books of
Common Prayer, it appears to have been the persuasion
of the Queen and her Council, that in the important
questions of the Eucharist and clerical Testments, too
much had been done in the reign of King Edivard, in the
ivay of innovation ; that the mysteries of religion had
been impugned by excluding words that might suggest,
though they would not necessarily involve the doctrine
of the Eeal Peesexce ; and the authority of the Church
had been injured in the alteration respecting vestments.
On the first point, accordingly, the words addressed
individually to the communicant were now made to com-
bine the two separate forms of the time of King Edward.
With the same view also was expunged the rubric, which
had been added to the Communion Service by that King

150 APPENDIX.

on his own authority, after the publication of his second
Liturgy ; declaring * that no adoration was done, or ought
to he done, to any Real or Essential Presence there being
of Christ's natural flesh and hlood.' To these changes
no reasonable objection could be made {i.e., by Roman
Catholics or Anglicans) on either side. The Romanists
could not disapprove of what they held to be improve-
ments," etc., etc., etc.

Thus, as far as Elizabeth was concerned, she would
have allowed no warning against adoring the Sacramental
emblems, as if Christ were present in them. Edward's
second book had said, " As concerning the Sacramental
bread and wine, they remain still in their very natural
substances, and therefore may not be adored; for that
were idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians."
This " declaration " about kneeling, and against idolatry,
was restored to the Communion Service as it now stands
at the last review of the Prayer-book, in 1661. (See
Cardwell's "Conferences;" and Dr. Blackeney's elaborate
"History of the Prayer-book," second edition, p. 413)

Elizabeth's, and her Council's, motives in thus going
backwards are obvious. She preferred more of ritual and
ceremonial in religious services than the more consistent
Reformers had set up, or which Edward's second Prayer-
book had retained. To the last, Elizabeth had candles
lighted upon the Comrnunion Table in her private chapel.
She also persevered in objecting to the marriage of
clergymen ; next, the Queen's, and her advisers', motive
was, that by a designed ambiguity of language in the
Communion Service, Roman Catholics might, after all,
believe that that service admitted the " Real Presence."
Could any thing but failure and confusion follow such a
compromise with dangerous error ?

APPENDIX. 151

n.
The Tern "Priest"

If we examine our present Prayer-book (which is sub-
stantially that of Queen Elizabeth), we shall find the
name " Priest " to be very often used in the Sacramental
Services of Baptism and the "Communion." The
" priest " is made to do the acts that are most significant
in these ordinances : e.g., " The i^riest standing at the
north side of the Lord's Table."

"Then shall the priest, turning to the people, still
kneeling," etc.

" The 'priest shall read the Gospel."

" The priest shall return to the Lord's Table."

" The ;priest shall place upon the Table so much bread
and wine," etc.

"After which the jpriest shall say," etc.

"The communicants being conveniently placed, the
'priest shall say."

" Then shall the priest say to them that come to re-
ceive," etc.

" Then shall the priest (or Bishop), turning himself to
the people, pronounce the absolution."

" Then shall the priest say."

"After which the priest shall proceed," etc.

" Then shall the priest turn to the Lord's Table."

" Then shall the priest, kneeling down at the Lord's
Table," etc.

"When th.Q priest, standing before the holy Table ....
he shall say the Prayer of Consecration," etc.

" Here the priest shall take the paten into his hands,
and here to break the bread, and here to lay his hand
upon all the bread."

152 APPENDIX.

"And here to lay his hand upon every chalice or

flagon."

"The priest is to consecrate more bread and wine."
" The priest shall say the Loed's prayer."
" The ;priest (or Bishop) shall let them depart."
Priest here occurs eighteen times. The term 'minister'

occurs eight times.

III.

Declaration of the Irish Church Laity on
Prayer-book Revision.

Most certain it is, that as long as ministers are called
priests, as long as they are commissioned to " forgive and
retain sins," as long as they are commanded to say, "I
absolve thee," however strongly the Articles, Liturgy,
and Homilies witness in general against all such priestly
assumptions, there will always be clergymen who will
assert their right to be " priests," upon the ground of
these very serious errors which our incomplete " Eefor-
mation " left in the Prayer-book. Let any man look at
the priestly reaction which has set in upon the English
Church during the last forty years, and say whether this
statement is fanciful. For my own part, I believe that a
third part of our clergy desire reunion with Rome, pro-
vided the Pope's supremacy could be curtailed. What
can we hope, when learned and pious Bishops of the
English Church go abroad in order to show their long-
ings for reunion with the " Old CatlwUcs," as a certain
party of dissenters from Papal "infallibility" are now
called ? Will these Bishops, or those who follow them,
propose any visible union with Presbyterian brethren,
with Methodist or Baptist brethren, though these latter

APPENDIX. 153

hold in vital union with themselves all the cardinal
Gospel truths ? It is too evident, from Bishop Words-
worth's letter to that Episcoj)al Succession; and the "three
orders" of "Bishops, Priests, and Deacons," are, in his
view, the one true basis of union as to Church govern-
ment and order ; and that all the sound Scripture doc-
trine taught by un-Episcopal Churches seems to go for
nothing*

In the Bishop's letter I look in vain for any repudiation
of the Priestly system, such as " old " as well as more
modern Catholics carry out. Does he then approve that
ancient Priestly system ? Otherwise, when he travels
to hold fellowship with foreign Christians, why propose
no brotherly communion with the Lutheran and Re-
formed Churches of Germany, France, etc. ? No attempt
however is made in England, or on the Continent, to
embrace the " Churches of the Reformation." We must
infer that our Bishops do not consider that unity in
saving truth is sufficient, unless it is taught by an Epis-
copal Church. Our best English " Reformers " openly
fraternised with foreign brethren in Switzerland, though
the latter professed no (so-called) " Episcopal Succes-
sion," and repudiated Priesthood. The general doctrine
as to the way of man's salvation being really oke and
the same, common sense teaches us that the way of a
sinner's salvation is taught just as truly, and is just as
true in itself, by the lips of a Baptist or Presbyterian, as
well as by those of a Bishop, or a clergyman ordained
by a Bishop.

It is consolatory to find that a large body of the laity
(or brethren) in the Irish Disestablished Church, have

* See Bishop Wordsworth's Letter to the Secretary of the
"Old Catholic" Congress. (Times' Newspaper of Sept. 18th,

1872.)

154 APPENDIX.

resolved to press for a revised Prayer-hooh, as soon as
freed from the inaction in which their former state had
kept them. They looked at what was dangerous to simple
truth in the present Prayer-book ; and since they have
obtained their proper place and influence in Church
Synods, we must hope that ere long their wishes will be
carried out.

lY.

Upon Ordination as a needfui requisite for
lawful IJ/linistry.

Since so much confusion and mistake prevail concerning
Ordination, and since we so often hear (in this country)
that some " spiritual gift" follows the imposition of hands
by a "Catholic" or "Anglo-Catholic" Bishop, I will
here put down all the ISTew Testament Scriptures which
bear directly upon the "laying on of hands," and the
results that followed it. A right understanding of these
Scriptures will remove the frequently-made objection to
all unordained preaching, as well as other errors that
are built upon the supposed virtue of Episcopal orders.

During the Apostle's ministry, there appear two kinds
of " laying on of hands."

(1) The laying on of hands by Apostles, by which " the
Holy Ghost was given " (Acts viii. 18) ; i.e., a spiritual
gift then bestowed which the receiver had not till then
possessed. Thus in Acts xix. 6, "they spake with
tongues and prophesied," on whom Paul had laid his
hands. Thus Acts viii. 17, when Peter and John were
sent to Samaria. " They laid their hands on them (the
new believers), and prayed for them, that they might

APPENDIX. 155

receive the Holy Ghost. For as yet He was fallen upon
none of them." (Yer. 16 — 17.) To Timotheus it is
written by St. Paul, " Stir up the gift that is in thee, by
the laying on of my hands" (2 Tim. i. 6.) Here was a
special spiritual gift, " the Spirit of power and of love
and of a sound mind."

Similarly we may refer to 1 Tim. iv. 14 : " Neglect not
the ' gift ' that is in thee, which was given thee by pro-
phecy, with the laying on of the hands of the Preshytery ."
Here seems to be a second bestowal of spiritual powers
through the laying on of hands by Apostles, in compaiiy
luith the " Presbytery," or body of elders. These latter,
as Bishop Ellicott observes, " with the Apostle, conjointly
laid their hands on him." (Ellicott on 1 Tim. iv. 14, p. 65,
Notes.) They were the Council of Elders, who met in
a city like Antioch. One or more of the Apostles was
present at this " laying on of hands." No mere " elder "
had the power of conferring a xaptoi;ta, or " spiritual gift,"
such as is here named. From the previous verse (thir-
teenth) we learn that Timotheus had received the gifts
of " exhortation " and of " teaching," named as gifts in
Rom. xii.

(2) The second " laying on of hands " was that used
for the ordinary commission of ministers to some spirit-
ual office, but which conferred no new spiritual " gift"
Thus in Acts vi. 6, the Apostles " laid their hands " upon
the seven men whom the believers had chosen to dis-
tribute alms to the widows. But previous to this their
"ordination," the seven were "full of the Holy Ghost
and of wisdom." Thus Paul and Barnabas, having been
called by the Holy Ghost (Acts xiii. 3), were commended
to their work with prayer, fasting, and imposition of
hands. We are not told whose hands were thus imposed.
It is plain, however, that on this occasion Paul needed no
new spiritual "gift." From the common custom that

156 APPENDIX.

prevailed in the Jewish Church of laying hands upon
all who were admitted to office in the synagogues,
"laying on of hands" seems to have followed naturally
in the appointment of Christian Church officers. The
next Scripture is Acts xiv. 28. Of Paul and Barnabas
it is here said, that "they ordained elders in every
Church." Thus vaguely have our translators rendered
this important verse, the only verse in the New Tes-
tament which gives any notion of the exact mode in
which the ordination of elders (Bishops) was conducted.
The Greek word for " ordained " is x'^i-poTovnfTOLVTtp .

The plain first meaning of this word is, " to appoint
hy a slioio of hands : " i.e., by suffrages, or votes. (See
Parkhurst's Greek Testament Lexicon on the Word.)
Parkhurst says that it may bear a third meaning, — simply
" to appoint ; " but he gives us no adequate proof for
this. Dean Alford, on this passage, explains the term :
" The Word will not bear Jerome's or Chrysostom's
sense of laying on of hands .... nor is there any reason
for departing from the usual meaning of electing hy show
of hands. The Apostles may have elected by ordination
those Preshyters whom the Churches elected." (Alford's
Commentary, vol. ii., p. 100.) Here then seems to be
the general Apostolic rule for setting apart elders or
bishops (overseers). The Church elected them by vote ;
the Apostles, or after them, the presiding Bishop (as
Timotheus) ordained them with imposition of hands.
This view is strengthened by 2 Cor. viii. 19, where our
translators have given the more correct meaning to
X^ipoTovEU). "Thebrotherwhowasc/iosenbythe Churches:"
" appointed hy vote," would be the correct meaning. We
have then here three great Scriptures for an elective
ministry ; whenever the ministers were ruling elders over
Churches, "messengers" of Churches, or subordinate
helpers. The deacons of Acts vi., the elders of Acts xiv.,

APPENDIX, 157

the messenger of 2 Cor. viii., were chosen for their offices
according to the Church's votes.

The next great Scriptures about ordination are those
found in 1 Tim. v. 22 and Titus i. 5. " Lay hands sud-
denly on no man," is the command given to Timotheus.
On the exact meaning of these words learned men differ.
In his valuable Commentary, Dean Alford gives a list of
eminent writers, ancient and modern, who think the
words to mean, " Do not hastily ordain men (by impo-
sition of hands) to the ministry." (See Alford, vol. iii.,
p. 337.) Bishop Ellicott, on the other hand, thinks they
do not refer to ordination, but to the too hastily receiving
back of offenders into Church communion. (See Ellicott
on 1 Tim. v. 22, p. 83.) Let us however suppose that
ordination is here intended by St. Paul. If so, it proves
that when an elder or deacon, having been chosen by the
Church's votes, was brought before Timotheus for ordi-
nation, the latter was to use discretion and caution in
ratifying the choice made.

Lastly, Titus is told to " ordain elders in every city."
(Titus i. 5.) The word "ordain" is here used by our
translators, no doubt, with reference to the conventional
meaning which that word had acquired. The Greek
word used by St. Paul is different from that used in Acts
xiv. 23. It is K'a0t/)j;/i5 : " to establish, settle, or place."
This establishing of elders was doubtless crowned by
prayer and solemn imposition of hands. The point, how-
ever, for our special notice is, that in these last-named
cases of Timotheus and Titus, no miraculous gift, no gift
of the Holy Ghost, is said to follow the ordination of
elders. Any one who reads 1 Tim. iii. and Titus i., must
see that the '* elder " and "deacon " had received all their
qualifications from the Holy Spirit before they could be
chosen for their offices in any Church. ]^o hint do we
find oriven to Timotheus or Titus, that the elders on

158 APPENDIX.

whom they laid hands would thereby " receive the Holy
Ghost ; " no more than that they should receive men's
private confessions of sin, or pronounce men's "abso-
lution," if they judged their confessions sincere. It may
have early become a doctrine, " Catholic," or generally
received, that Bishops succeeded the Apostles as the
channels of " spiritual gifts " to those whom they or-
dained. We have simply to ask. Was this doctrine
AjJostoUc ? — was it either enjoined in the Apostles'
writings, or to be rationally deduced from them ? If
not, its Catholicity has no more weight than the Catholic
doctrine of PriestJiood.

If Apostolic Bishops had no such extraordinary powers,
certainly no subsequent Bishops have had them. But
fad stands up to demolish the delusive theory. We
challenge all who have been ordained by Bishops in the
Anglican Church, to prove that upon and directly fol-
lowing the " laying on of hands," any one " spirihial gift "
came upon them such as they had not before they entered
the Cathedral. Never has any honest man claimed such
a miracle in his own case. On the other hand, thousands
of godly men have received, and are able to use, " spirit-
ual gifts," who have never been thus " ordained," and
who know that no ordination would add to those gifts
which they possess. Here are two facts admitting of no
rational contradiction. What more is needed P

Our English Church Reformers chose the fatal course
of not going simply to the Apostles'' teaching and practice
for their form of Ordination Service. They went to
the so-called Catholic teaching and practice of the
Roman and Greek Churches, set up long ages after the
Apostles' age. They wished especially to convince the
Roman Church of their own day, that they held fast to
the theory of an unbroken succession of lawfully or-
dained Bishops, together with the unbroken continuance

APPENDIX. 159

of the Holy Spihit's grace and gifts, flowing necessarily-
through the " laying on of hands " by such Bishops. A
child may bring this fatal theory to its logical conclusion.

If all the Roman Bishops and Priests were made valid
ministers of Christ because their " orders " were' thus
Divinely given, what could justify the " Reformers " in
removing Bishops and Priests from their lawful ministry,
because the latter would not conform to the Reformed
system ? And again : if all Roman and Greek priests
are validly appointed ministers of Christ during the
last 1200 years of gross error in religion, then they are
Christ's lawful ministers, though they teach idolatrous
homage to Mary " the mother of our Lord." the fable of
transubstantiation, and all other errors ; while, on the
other hand, all the godly ministers of non-Episcopal
Churches, however bright their piety, or useful their
ministry to souls, are no laivful ministers at all !

Thus, in our own day, Chalmers, Duff, Bonar, and
Cooke, had no Divine sanction for their ministry. They
were unlawful intruders.

Y.

The Bishop of Manchester on the Ordination
and Visitation Services.

Extracted from the " Guardian" newspaper
of Dec. 11th, 1872.

N.B. — I have been kindly informed by his Lordship,
that this printed report of his " charge " is authentic,
being a copy of his MS.

"Some may think, and I myself am one who think,
that the Form of Absolution in the Order for the

160 APPENDIX.

Visitation of the Sick is mediaeval in its spirit rather
than primitive, and seems to claim more authority for
the priest than properly can belong to man; hid our
Lord's oimi loords to His Apostles are quite as strong.
'Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto
them ; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are re-
tained :' and no one denies that the Church has authority
to declare the terms on which God has promised to
forgive sins, and to give, in the same sense in which
Nathan gave it to David, to the penitent sinner 'the
benefit of absolution.' 'The Lord hath put away thy
sin ; thou shalt not die.' Even the phrase in the form of
the Ordering of Priests, which has been so much cavilled
at, ' Keceive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a
priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee
by the imposition of our hands,' is no mere arrogant
and indefensible claim of the Bishop and the assisting
Presbyters to possess, or to have the power to bestow,
supernatural powers, — is nothing more than Paul claims,
when he bids Timothy, the young Ephesian Bishop, ' stir
up the gift of God, which was in him, by the putting on
of his hands, together with the laying on of the hands
of the Presbytery.' ' If,' as Richard Hooker says, ' the
Holy Ghost, which our Saviour in His first ordinations
gave, doth still concur with spiritual vocations through-
out all ages,' ' seeing that the same power is now given,
why should the same form of words expressing it be
thought foolish ? Remove what these foolish words do
imply, and what hath the ministry of God besides
wherein to glory ? "

Unless the Bishop had vouched for the accuracy of
this printed report, I could not have believed that so
enlightened a writer could have used these words. " Be-
cause our Divine Lord was pleased to invest His Apos-
tles with powers supernatural, tlierefore an ordinary

APPENDIX, 161

clergyman, or "priest," may say to a dying man, "I
absolve thee from all thy sins." There seems to be an
equal want of reverence and of reasoning in the state-
ment. The grand point is simply here taken for granted :
viz., That any men or all ordained ministers had such
fower granted to them after the Apostles. No proof is
ventured for this unconditional statement.

Next, if we take the Apostles as being endowed with
extraordinary powers, we never read of their saying to
the people who professed their faith in the Lord Jesus,
" I, Paul, or Peter, absolve you." It is, " Through this
man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins." (Acts
xiii. 38.) " If we confess our sins. He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins." (1 John i. 9.) Into the full im-
port of these Divine words, " Whose sins ye remit," etc.,
as then spoken, I cannot here enter. It would require a
long discussion. Whatever our view of them, " super-
natural power " was given thereby, though not to the full
extent of the Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit.

(1) The Bishop considers this Form of Absolution
" rather mediceval than j^rhnitive." By "primitive " we
generally understand the third and fourth centuries,
when Apostolic traditions might be kept in a measure
uncorrupted. I say "might be;" for we have already
seen how Clement and Ignatius fell from Apostolic sim-
pHcity. Mediceval tradition is certainly to be suspected :
medicBval religion included all Kome's errors. We find,
in fact, that the priestly formula, " I absolve thee," was
not used, even in the corrupted Western Church, before
the twelfth century ; and the author who first wrote in
its defence was Thomas Aquinas, the celebrated champion
(as we may call him) of Rome's accumulated errors. So
that this dangerous formula of " absolution " is really
a creation of modern Rome; and yet Cranmer adopted
it. (See in proof Palmer's " Origines Liturgica,'' vol. li.

162 APPENDIX.

Humphry's " Historical Treatise on the Prayer-book,
p. 252, third edition.) "Wheatley (on the Prayer-book)
says (p. 435, on the Visitation Service), " It does not
appear to have been generally introduced till about the
middle of the hvelfth century ; and then it was made
use of to reconcile the penitent to the Church. With-
in a century afterwards, indeed, it was a ruled case
in the Church, that such as received the confession of
penitents should, by an indicative form, absolve them
from all their sins : " i.e., as the Eoman priest does
absolve judicially. To this modern Roman formula was
our unhappy National Church committed by those
Reformers who temporised with error.

(2) "No one denies that the Cliurcli has authority to
declare the terms on which God has promised to forgive
sins ; and to give in the same sense in which Nathan
gave it to David, — 'The Lord hath put away thy sin.
Thou shalt not die.' " I can see no parallel between
Nathan's commission and that of ordinary pastors and
Bishops. Nathan was an inspired prophet, sent to de-
liver to men messages of the Divine will, communicated
supernaturally to himself. Bishops are not thus inspired :
they have no supernatural messages to deliver. Secondly,
though a man inspired, Nathan did not say, as clergymen
are told to say, " I absolve thee from all thy sins ; " but
" the Lord hath put away thy sin." We have no objection
to ministers "declaring to His people, being penitent, the
absolution of their sins." They do so, however, not as
judges, or inquisitors of the heart by process of a con-
fessional, as do the Romish priests.

(3) " Even the phrase in the Form of Ordering of
Priests, which has been so much cavilled at, 'Receive
the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest ....
by the imposition of our hands,' is no mere arrogant and
indefensible claim of the Bishop, and of the assisting

APPEXDIX. 163

Presbyters, to 'possess, or to have the poivej' to hesfoiv,
supernatural poivers, is nothing more than Paul claims,
when he bids Timothy, the watchful Bishop, to ' stir up
the gift of God that was in him, by the putting on of his
hands, together with the laying on of the hands of the
Presbytery.' " (Hooker is then quoted by the Bishop as
confirming his statement.)

Here, as in the former case, the point, in dispute is
taken for granted, without any proof. The statement is
mere assertion. The question remains. Does the power
of conferring " gifts " of the Spikit necessarily attend a
Bishop in ordination, because a " gift " was given to
Timothy through St. Paul's hands ? " Through the
laying on of Apostles' hands, the Holt Ghost was given."
(Acts viii.) Such is the Divine record. But we read of
oio other men to whom such power was "handed down,"
or was to be given. We deny the fact of such miraculous
power being given to any hut Apostles. We challenge
proof of the gift : and we cannot allow those who claim
its possession to persevere in such claim without remon-
strance.

In answer to a letter which I wrote to the Bishop, and
to which he courteously repHed, he says that he purposely
" excluded the arrogant and indefensible claim of the
Bishop to bestow supernatural powers," etc. ; that " what-
ever power was transmitted in ordination, was the same
that Paul told Timothy to stir up." As I informed the
Bishop in my reply, ordinary Bishops and the Apostle
are thus put by him upon a level. What Paul gave, a
Bishop gives. Such a statement only begs the main
question at issue. Timothy, by St. Paul's hands, had
really received " the Spirit of love and of power and of
a sound mind." (2 Tim. i. 6.) Clergymen do not receive
such a gift (as far as evidence goes) at or through a
Bishop's ordination. I could not but remind the Bishop

164 APPENDIX.

to what a grave conclusion these views of " ordination "
must lead us. If spiritual grace and gifts must follow
on the imposition of hands by a Bishop, then all the
priests of Rome and the Greek Church, who for centuries
have taught an idolatrous worship of Mary, have re-
ceived such spiritual grace and gifts. On the other hand,
such men as Challoners, Duff, and McCheyne, because
they were ordained by ministers who had themselves had
no Episcopal ordination, received neither grace nor gifts,
and had no authority to minister. This theory excom-
municates all good ministers of most foreign Eeformation
Churches.

YI.

On ''Lay Readers."

Several English Bishops lately sent forth what are
called " Lay Readers." Their office is (as I understand)
to explain as well as to read the Scriptures, to visit the
sick and the poor, in those parishes where the clergy-
man approves of such ministry. Though so long delayed,
such a deaco7iship (as we may call it) is an excellent
improvement. But for this office there is no canon,
formulary, or legal sanction; and as long as Bishops are
bound by the strict obligations of an Establishment, they
cannot legally impose new officers upon clergymen, or
upon their parishioners. The Lay Readers are also for-
bidden to iJreacli. We must, however, rejoice that the
If^'inciple of a long forbidden lay agency is at last
admitted.

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