A 00 - Introduction

    INTRODUCTION

It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the Sacraments in the congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called, and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the congregation to call and send ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.

Article xxiii.

It is evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy Scripture and ancient authors, that from the Apostles time there have been these orders of ministers in Christ’s Church: Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Which offices were evermore had in such reverent estimation, that no man might presume to execute any of them, except he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite for the same; and also by public prayer, with imposition of hands, were approved and admitted thereunto by lawful authority.

Preface to the Ordinal.

INTRODUCTION For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every city, as I gave thee charge. Titus 1:5. THE subject of the present series of lectures is the "Priesthood of the Laity" as considered historically and critically. It is an attempt to answer the following questions: Is there such a thing as the priesthood of the laity? It seems at first sight a stimulating paradox. Have we historical and critical grounds for affirming such an expression? By tracing the history of the question in the prominent moments when the idea emerges, can we observe a continuously revealed truth? If there is such a truth, has it not a supremely practical teaching? Does it not invoke a higher standard for all who share in it and a deeper sense of responsibility? Have not recent events shown that a cleavage not contemplated in primitive times has developed between clergy and laity, between Church and State, which is disastrous alike i to both? If this be so, may we not find in it the due recognition of a neglected truth, and a true solution of many difficulties, which plead for the solidarity and not op position of the necessary parts of the Kingdom of God on earth?

If it can be shown that the personal priesthood of all Christians in no way invalidates the ministerial priesthood of the Church’s officers, may we not do some thing towards regaining the lost ideal? For while it would be an unwise and dangerous experiment to take a certain portion of a living organism and place it under the microscope, severing it from the channels which bring the rich blood from the heart and stimulating impulses from the brain, on the other hand it is most helpful and necessary to restore circulation to a living body which has become languid and flaccid from disuse and return to it the several purposes for which it was intended. There is no intention to concentrate attention on one portion, though it be the general body, and shut our eyes to its necessary organs and their historic functions. That way lies fanaticism. The view taken in these lectures includes the relation of laity to clergy, ministers to people. It has been well said that it has not been that the position of the clergy has changed, but the position of the laity. To prove this we need to go back to first principles. In recent years there has been made an appeal to the First Six Centuries in order to distinguish between practices which have a claim to catholic authority. The thought is most fruitful; for it implies that all schools of thought may study and learn for themselves, apart from party spirit, the true facts of the case. So also with regard to the question before us. If it can be shown by a scientific examination of early organisation that there is a truth for all to see uninfluenced by the bias of training and prejudice, then all students of the principles of the Earliest Church can discover the truth for themselves. A criterion will be established by which each Christian body can learn the cause for its failure in the past and the means of return to the principles of the Primitive Church.

It is worth while stating that in the title "Priesthood of the Laity" no other priest hood is intended than the priesthood of all Christians the priesthood which belongs to the whole body, including alike ministers and laymen. Of that General Priesthood the share which falls to those who are not officers is the subject of our consideration. The Christian privilege of personal nearness to God, the right to plead for oneself and for others, intercession with God for a heathen world, the right to offer devotion to Him in personal self-sacrifice above

\all the free access without intermediary into the very presence of God this has been to a certain extent in practice forgotten or lost sight of. There is a deeply ingrained tendency in men to allow others | to do their devotions for them. Such a neglect has led to the lowering of the spiritual life of the main body and to the loss of the high primitive standard. There has been a cleavage between those called to minister and that portion which has no lower status, no lesser dignity, than to be members of the Kingdom of God on earth. It has been objected that while St. Jerome was right in saying that an individual layman had a personal priesthood, yet that priesthood cannot be applied to a community of laymen. It is said the priesthood of a layman is correct, but the priesthood of the laity is a paradox. It is sufficient to reply that this is the very title given to the general body of believers in Scripture. St. Peter says, "Ye are a royal priesthood" (1Peter 2:9). Justin Martyr says, "Ye are the true high-priestly race of God." The original institution by our Lord of a ministry in the Church in the persons of the apostles and its perpetuation by apostolic authority down the centuries is a fact apparent in the earliest Christian documents. It appears in these as the necessary organ of the corporate and public worship as specially responsible for handing on the tradition of doctrine and morals, and as maintaining the principles of unity and order because it acts as a necessary centre for all Christian life in the local Church or in the Church Catholic. It does not follow that the Church is a simple hierarchy. It is a hierarchy largely tempered by spiritual democracy. It was of the very essence of the New Covenant that in it the gift of the Holy Spirit should be given to all flesh that is, to the elect people as a whole. The very conception of a visible Christian Church is that of a separate community with a distinct sphere of religious life. This implies that the Society must have powers of oversight and discipline to be exercised on its members. The authority which the Church possesses is different from that which a voluntary society exercises on its members and from that of lawful civil government. The authority comes from Christ Himself. The Christian democracy is also a theocracy. Our Blessed Lord, when founding His kingdom on earth, seems to have combined two principles which seem diverse but really are mutually corrective. He appointed the Twelve, He appointed the Seventy. After His departure the whole body of the disciples appointed Matthias and the Seven, and St. Paul says, " For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every city, as I gave thee charge" (Titus 1:5). (Cf. Acts 14:23; Clem. Rom. xlii.)

There is no doubt whatever that divinely appointed ministers were intended not only to discharge the duties which devolved on every citizen of the Kingdom of God, but also to shepherd the flock. On the other hand our Blessed Lord speaks directly to the whole body of the disciples, and inculcates an immediate relation between them and Himself. "Abide in Me, and I in you." "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am in the midst of them."

Although there is a divinely appointed ministry, yet there is no intermediary between the soul and God. It has been maintained, and with much force, that all the Biblical commissions were given to the body at large. By St. Paul the Church is compared to a body in which all the members are necessary. The Church is compared to a temple in which the Christians are living stones. Each Christian might, if the Spirit willed, take his share in maintaining discipline, in binding and loosing, in admitting or excluding from the Church. As it was in the apostolic times, so it is now there is on the one hand a regularly ordained ministry, and on the other a corporate body possessing powers of the highest privilege in relation to God. To the question, "Is there a priesthood of the laity? Holy Writ answers emphatically" Yes." To the question, "Has every layman in consequence an authority to officiate publicly in the congregation? the answer is emphatically " No." Those who maintain most strongly that the great commission was given to the entire body maintain also that no army can take the field without officers, and that for the purposes of order a regular ministry is necessary for the proper maintenance of worship and discipline. A body of officers which had a continuous succession from the earliest times is not inconsistent with the fact that each member of the Christian Church has individually free access to God and that to the body as a whole the promise is given, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

I have said these two principles are mutually corrective. On the one hand history has shown us that an autocratic hierarchy has been so filled with the idea of its authority that it has been led into terrible tyranny over the flock of Christ. The corrective to such autocracy is the great truth of the privilege enjoyed by each member of the community as belonging to a spirit-inspired body, and personally taught by the Spirit and possessing spiritual judgment as well as free access to God.

Quidquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi [Hor. Ep. I. ii. 14.] has been the description of many a weary century when the universal priesthood of Christians was forgotten. On the other hand individualistic and subjective aberrations have been kept in check. Anarchy and disorder have been avoided by the other principle of a regular ministry of duly appointed and properly qualified officers. To the thoughtful mind these two elements are not in any way inconsistent. Circumstances have occurred and may occur when members of the ministry may be absent, or unexpectedly removed, and then the in alienable general priesthood of Christians supplies the need required in the emergency. Circumstances may occur when there is a tendency to disintegrating and distinctive individualism, and the situation is saved by the other principle namely, that of a regular ministry of Church officers.

Irenseus speaks of a "charisma veritatis " possessed by the succession of bishops (Against Heresies, iv. xl. 2). Dr. Lind say (The Church and Ministry in the Early Centuries, p. 227) believes this is not an argument in favour of the Infallibility of the Bishop of Rome, but a fulfilment of the promise that the Spirit-inspired Church through its officers will maintain the truth against individual heresies.

There is a very great distinction to be made between public and private ministry. It is one thing for a member of the general priesthood of all Christians to pray for and to edify himself, his family, and his friends, in home or social life; it is quite another to take upon himself a position as public minister in the congregation, to which he has not been regularly chosen, called, and appointed. To those who cavil at the doctrine of the priesthood of the laity as infringing upon the duties and privileges of the clergy, it is a sufficient answer that as in an army so in the Church: discipline is absolutely necessary to efficiency. The teaching of St. Paul is at one with that of St. Clement and St. Ignatius in enforcing order, obedience, and sub mission to a rule which can at any moment be tested and compared with the will of Christ. To say that each member of the Christian community should have his place and work and be encouraged to take an intelligent part, is in no way subversive of the truth that there is in the Christian Church a regular provision for the maintenance of order and the discharge of public functions. To say that there is a succession of regularly appointed ministers, is to be clearly distinguished from saying that these ministers possess that relation to God and man which is described as sacerdotal. They do not act instead of the people; they act as representing the people. The function is representative and not vicarial. In the language of Scripture it is the Church entire and complete, not any class or rank or caste of persons in it, which is spoken of as the Spirit-bearing body of Christ the holder of power and privilege in Christ; nay, even as Christ Himself on earth. As we read, " As the body of a man is one and hath many members, and all members of the body, though they be many, are one body, so also is Christ " (1 Corinthians 12:12). This great saying applies to the Church at large; not to apostles and clergy alone, but to the entire Church, including its members, whether clerical or lay. We believe with St. Augustine and Cyprian, that when Christ promised to St. Peter the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven He promised them to the Church at large, whose faith and unity St. Peter on that occasion represented. Cyprian says: "And although He gave equal power to all the apostles, and says, As the Father sent Me so I send you. Receive the Holy Spirit. To whomsoever you remit sins, they shall be remitted unto him; to whomsoever you retain them, they shall be retained, nevertheless, that He might manifest unity, He arranged by His authority the origin of the same unity beginning from one person. The rest of the apostles were certainly what Peter was, endowed with equal share in honour and power, but the beginning proceeds from one that the Church might be known to be one " (St. Cyprian, De Unitate Ecclesice, c. 4). See Benson, St. Cyprian, p. 203.

It is the Church at large, in the case of the admission of a converted heathen or a child into the body of Christ by baptism, who takes as a mother the newly made member of the body. It is the whole body at Holy Communion which commemorates the life-giving sacrifice of Christ, and in unity and holiness feeds on the meat and drink indeed of His holy Body and Blood. It is the collective Church, with reference to excommunication, to which the sin is to be told and whose voice is commanded to be heard. It is more or less faithfully representing the entire Church that a Council makes decrees in matters of faith. It does not overrule the Church nor issue laws to the Church upon its own authority. In the Church in its entireness, in all its members not in some only dwells the fulness of the Holy Spirit. In the Church is that ultimate authority which nothing but the indwelling of the Holy Spirit can give. This is one half of the truth, never to be forgotten.

There is another not less important half, which is entirely compatible with it. There exists in this Spirit-bearing body a divinely appointed ministry. This ministry, ordained by imposition of hands in due succession from the apostles, is authorised to represent the entire Church in its various functions. Some functions are committed to them alone to exercise, yet even in these they wield powers which are ultimately the powers of the whole body. In other functions they ask in various degrees the joint action of other members of the Church besides themselves. To constitute a true representation it is not necessary now, as at first, that universal choice and delegation should select and empower them. The custom of reading the "Si quis" is a trace of early selection by the people. Nor is it necessary to have a renewal of reference to the universal will for the continuance of this representation.

It is necessary that the whole should have some power to act in some manner and degree, as the representatives are only men, and liable to the infirmities of human feeling and passion. The whole body should not be excluded from contributing its sanction, and if its sanction, its possible refusal of sanction even in the highest instances of the exercise of these powers. Roman writers destroy while they acknowledge this truth, for they limit the power to the episcopate united to its centre, i.e. the Papacy. Cardinal Manning says: "The pastoral authority of the episcopate, together with the priesthood and the other orders, constitute an organised body, divinely ordered to guard the deposit of faith. The voice of that body, not as many individuals, but as a body, is the voice of the Holy Ghost. The pastoral ministry cannot err, because the Holy Spirit, who is indissolubly united to the mystical body, is eminently above all united to the hierarchy and body of its pastors. The episcopate united to its centre is, in all ages, divinely sustained and divinely assisted to perpetuate and enunciate the original revelation." But these lectures, on the one hand, maintain that the Spirit-bearing Church in all its members is the ultimate possessor of every sort of privilege in Christ the Head, so that those who exercise office are the representatives of the body at large. On the other hand they are descended from those appointed by the apostles. They have been set apart by the laying on of hands; they have had prayers offered that they might receive the Holy Spirit to discharge aright those powers which they discharge in the name of the whole Church as its ministers. At the very outset the conditions of Church Government exhibit the existence of two sets of authority side by side. On the one hand the apostles and other officers, with their commission received from above; on the other the whole body of the Church, with the authority of the indwelling Spirit. At first, through the brotherly love and enthusiasm of the new-born Christianity, no friction will be felt. But sooner or later the two authorities will come into conflict, and then to preserve the balance between them will be the problem of the Church.

"Our apostles also knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be strife on account of the office of the episcopate. For this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained a perfect foreknowledge of this, they appointed those [ministers] already mentioned, and after wards gave instructions that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry. We are of opinion, therefore, that those appointed by them, or afterwards by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole Church, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ in an humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. For our sin will not be small if we eject from the episcopate (or oversight) those who have blamelessly and holily fulfilled their duties [lit. presented the offerings]. Blessed are those presbyters who, having finished their course before now, have obtained a fruitful and perfect departure [from this world], for they have no fear lest any one deprive them of the place appointed them. But we see that ye have removed some men of excellent behaviour from the ministry which they fulfilled blamelessly and with honour" (Clement of Rome, xliv.).

"These things, therefore, being manifest to us, and since we look into the depths of the divine knowledge, it behoves us to do all things in [their proper] order, which the Lord hath commanded us to perform at stated times. He has enjoined offerings [to be presented] and service to be performed [to Him], and that not thoughtlessly or irregularly, but at the stated times and hours. Where and by whom He desires these things to be done He Himself hath fixed by His own supreme will, in order that all things being piously done according to His good pleasure may be acceptable to Him. Those, therefore, who present their offerings at the appointed times are accepted and blessed, for as much as they follow the laws of the Lord, they sin not. For his own peculiar services are assigned to the high priest, and their own special ministrations devolve on the Levites. The layman is bound by the laws that pertain to laymen " (Clement of Rome, xl.).

"Let every one of you, brethren, give thanks to God in his own order, living in all good conscience, with becoming gravity, and giving regard to the rule of the ministry presented to him. Not in every place, brethren, are the daily sacrifices offered, or the peace offerings, and the trespass offerings, but in Jerusalem only. And even there they are not offered in any place, but only at the altar before the temple, that which is offered being first carefully examined by the high priest and the ministers already mentioned. Those, therefore, who do anything beyond His will are punished with death. Ye see, brethren, that the greater the knowledge vouchsafed to us the greater also is the danger to which we are exposed" (Clement of Rome, xli.).

"The apostles received the Gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ was sent forth from God. So then Christ is from God, and the apostles are from Christ. Both, therefore, came by the will of God in the appointed order. Having, there fore, received their orders and being fully assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and established on the Word of God, with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at hand. And thus preaching through countries and cities, they appointed the first fruits [of their labours], having first proved them by the Spirit to be bishops and deacons of those who should afterwards believe. Nor was this any new thing, since indeed many ages before it was written concerning bishops and deacons, For thus saith the Scripture in certain places, I will appoint their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith (Clement of Rome, xlii.).

Isaiah 60:17, where R.V. correctly renders the original, "I will also make thy officers (lit. magistrates) peace and their exactors (i.e. task-masters) righteousness "; i.e. there shall be no tyranny or oppression. The LXX departs from the original, and Clement has altered the LXX. By this double divergence a reference to the two orders of the ministry is obtained.

"But what is the bearing of all this for us? So you will ask when you read these words, Ambrosius, thou who art truly a man of God, a man in Christ, and who seekest to be not a man only, but a spiritual man. The bearing is this. Those of the tribes who offer to God through the Levites and priests, tithes and first fruits; not every thing which they possess do they regard as tithes and first fruits. The Levites and priests, on the other hand, have no possessions but tithes and first fruits, yet they also in turn offer tithes to God through the high priests, and I believe first fruits too. The same is the case with those who approach Christian studies. Most of us devote the greater part of our time to the things of this life, and dedicate to God only a few special acts, thus resembling those members of the tribes who had but few transactions with the priests, and discharged their religious duties with no great expense of time. But those who devote themselves to the Divine Word, and have no other employment but the service of God, may not unnaturally, allowing for the difference of occupation in the two cases, be called our Levites and priests. And those who fill a more distinguished office than their kinsmen will be perhaps high priests ac cording to the order of Aaron, not that of Melchizedek. Here, too, some one may object that it is somewhat too bold to apply the name of high priest unto men when Jesus Himself is spoken of in many a prophetic passage as the one High Priest, as Hebrews 4:14, We have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. But to this we may reply that the apostle clearly defined his meaning and declared the prophet to have said about the Christ, Thou art a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchizedek, and not according to the order of Aaron. We say accordingly that men can be high priests according to the order of Aaron, but according to the order of Melchizedek only the Christ of God "(Origen’s Commentary on St. John, bk. i. 3). The antinomy of an official ministry side by side with the doctrine of the priest hood of all God’s people must be acknowledged. Much has been written concerning the former truth. An endeavour is now made to show that the latter truth is also part of the Primitive Ideal.

After the last returns the first, Though a wide compass round be stretched.

What began best can t be worst, Nor what God blessed once prove accursed.