SECTION 5

GLANCE AT THE NATIONAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AS AT PRESENT ESTABLISHED.
These last are but observations concerning details. Let us come to facts-that is to say, to what concerns the National Presbyterian Church as at present established. However ingenious theories may appear on paper, what have the two orders of things, I am about to present, in common?
The one, that an apostle, who is neither of men nor by man, chooses men, some of whom were already prophets, and the others distinguished for piety, and, as to the latter, confers a gift on them by the imposition of hands.
The other, that in a certain geographical circumscription there is found established, as a sort of monarchical government, a pastor, who may even not be converted (as happens in the immense majority of cases), but who is established according to a system limited to a nation, and established over an unconverted flock or still worse, pretends to feed those who are really the sheep of the Lord; who (what an apostle made no pretense to, for it is to put oneself above God, instead of being His servant) pretends to have the right to refuse and to reject those whom the Lord Himself might send for the blessing of His true sheep, and who, perhaps, raises the police against them. And do not say that I have not the right to suppose this pastor established according to a human order, to be unconverted.
I have this right, and justly so, since the " Examination " will have it that the national institution is of God; still more since it will have it that, even in the case in which the pastor, established according to this system, might propagate mischievous and poisonous doctrine," the thing should be left to God, and the poor sheep to the care of the wolf. I am bound to inquire whence the right which makes this pastor a monarch derives its source. It is not derived from God, assuredly; for it is not God who has chosen him. It is either a Council of State, or, save an appeal to the Minister of Public Worship, a Consistory composed of the principal tax-payers, or a king, or a patron who has purchased this right for money. This is what is said by pious ministers, who thereby show the judgment they pass on systems they themselves have long defended, accusing of schism and radicalism, those who, their hearts broken by such a state of things, had judged it their duty to abandon it. The force of circumstances has constrained them to acknowledge as an institution not only human, but injurious to the rights of Christ, that which the " Examination " still defends and maintains as being an institution of Christ; and, as defenders of the slighted rights of Christ over His Church, the ministers of whom we speak have stood forward to vindicate them against the same institution whose cause the " Examination" endeavors to plead.
Think, Christians, think of such a system, in presence of the love of Christ for His Church!
Another question presents itself. According to the " Examination," the present ministerial order, a fusion of divine gifts and human office, concentrates the guidance of the flock in one office, that of elders, and this office in one man. It adds, " This ministry of one man ought to seek to reinforce and multiply itself through the gifts which the Spirit of God grants to the members of the flock, whether by associating these gifts with himself officiously, as the present office of elders offers him the means of doing, or by encouraging and directing these gifts in their private exercise."
What is, at bottom, this liberality, this generosity? Nothing but, without perhaps the consciousness of it, the usurpation of the place of Christ in the exercise of His sovereignty over His Church.
Let us even suppose, to give the "Examination" the greatest possible advantage as to its ground-let us suppose these concentrating ministers to be in every place converted and truly elders, here is our question:-Who is it that has given them the right to accept or refuse the gifts which are exercised freely? What passage of scripture can afford any presumption that Christ has conferred such a right upon them?
We go farther still and concede still more. Let us suppose for an instant that these ministers, each of whom is one man, invested with one office, which concentrates in itself the guidance of the flock, and which is the fusion of a gift and an office, were in a true position: are not the evangelists, teachers, pastors, prophets, who are not " mediatized," the servants of Christ responsible to Christ, and to Christ alone? Are they perchance responsible to those who hold office? Nothing approaching to such a thought is found in the word. Has Christ the right to give such ministries? And, if He gives them, to whom are they responsible?
Alas! in the system which is sought to be sustained, but which the word of God does not sustain, it is a question, in fact, neither of the Church of God, nor of ministry, in the Church of God.
That which is in question is a geographical district, under the dominion of such and such a sovereign, or in the territory of such and such a state. This district is a parish. All the inhabitants are made Christians of; in certain countries civil rights even are attached to this qualification of being a member of the established church. According to the system, all spiritual movement outside this arrangement is prohibited. At a determined age, persons take the sacrament for the first time; and there are countries where it is only after the accomplishment of this act, that custom permits young people to go and drink and dance. When, by sacrament first taking, they have become completely Christians, they may then go. But for this parish a minister is necessary. And if it is in this manner that Christians are made, it is not astonishing that ministers are made at the university.
And let not people cry out that these are only abuses. No, this is the system. According to the system, in fact, according to the principle described in the " Examination," and according to that which exists as a fact in the national churches, one must recognize a Socinian minister, or, if you will, an unconverted minister, as well as a pious minister. He has the same rights in the church; and the minister of Christ, whom the national establishment may have placed in either the same parish or a neighboring one, is bound to recognize him and to leave the sheep of Jesus in the hands of such a man.
And the Bible is quoted to justify this institution! And it is quoted, because it shows us that there were over churches elders, and, as is also said, angels! Separation is complained of. Separation from what? From a system which, according to the new light of a part of the clergy themselves, denies the rights of Christ over His Church, compels the sheep of Jesus to remain in poisonous pastures, and places the Church, bound hand and foot, in the hands of men. And why not separate from it? Is it the Church of Christ? I think not; it is not what I have found in the word. And if it is not the Church of Christ, why then be of it? Truly pious ministers will answer, " We do not ask you to acknowledge unconverted ministers." In that case, why do they acknowledge them themselves? And how do they think that we can acknowledge, in their person, a system which they condemn as to others?
To say that the principle of the existing ministry is only the fusion of gift and office, while, in the greater number of cases, there are, on the part of those who are invested with it, neither gifts, nor even conversion, is only to deceive oneself about words in a very serious matter. That which is practiced in the national institution in order to prepare and to make ministers, is not, as is pretended, what Paul commends to Timothy, when he says, " The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also," 2 Tim. 2:2. No. To instruct young men at a university with a view to ordain them afterward, be they or be they not gifted or converted, is not to commit certain truths to faithful men; it is to instruct and train for a profession young men whose faithfulness has not yet been able to be proved, and who have not one of the qualities requisite for an elder. In certain cases there was a union of gifts and offices. That which is now in vogue is a vast system which has no reference to either the one or the other.
No, the inhabitants of a geographical district do not form the Church of Christ. No, a ministry which joins together and confounds in one mass and with the same rights the converted and the unconverted, unbelievers and believers, gifted and ungifted, is not the true ministry, but a confusion established by man.
It is in vain for the author of the " Examination " to connect and fuse together gifts and offices. I defy him to bring forward, in the biblical history of ministry, anything similar to the system in which he acts and which he maintains. And if the body of Christ is one, how can these geographical districts be that body? That in one particular town the children of God should all unite together and form a body, can be understood; the Bible has made me understand it: but that in the constitution of the Church there should be anything like nationalism, anything like nationality in the matter of the Church, is what is not found in the word of God.
No, the word of God does not speak to us of the fusion of gifts and offices; it does not at all justify the system of the " Examination." It shows us, outside all human order, the extraordinary call of Paul, a call which the " Examination " leaves entirely aside. It is to Paul that had been committed the revelation of a mystery hidden from ages and from generations (Col. 1:26), a revelation, observe, precisely of this truth of the Church of God, one body, united to Christ on high; and Paul particularly insists that the ministry which was entrusted to him has no relation with that which went before.