371 PARK HALL. THURSDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER 3RD, 1889. The Right Rev. the PRESIDENT in the Chair. THE MINISTRY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. (a) THE WITNESS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. (b) THE WITNESS OF HISTORY. (c) ORDERS IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. (a) THE WITNESS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. The Rev. HERBERT MORTIMER LUCKOCK, D.D., It was an essential principle of the old dispensation that God should convey spiritual gifts to men, not directly, but mediately through human agents. It was not given to every one among the chosen people to learn God's Will at His own mouth, but it was revealed to him by prophets; neither was he allowed to propitiate the Divine favour by offering sacrifice himself, but a priest interposed to plead in his behalf the blood which made atonement for his soul. Now this dispensation was a preparatory one; it looked forward to and was fulfilled in Christ, Who gathered into His own Person, in complete perfection, the twofold office of prophet and priest. In the Incarnation He so reflected the image of the Father among men that they might know His Will perfectly; and the sacrifice that He offered was sufficient to atone for the sins of all. But did this fulfilment involve the supersession of all human mediation? Was Christ to be henceforward not only the Prophet and Priest, but the only one? It would doubtless have been so had He remained upon earth to minister among men; but in His absence human agents were every bit as necessary to carry on and apply His work, as they had been to foreshadow and prepare for it. Now, some difficulty has been felt in admitting the administration of Christ's office upon earth by human hands; but it is confined entirely to that part of it which belongs to His Priesthood. The thought of a perpetuation of the prophetic office, at least in its ordinary function of preaching and teaching, or again, of the delegation of His Sovereign power to earthly kings, creates no opposition; yet Christ was as much the perfect embodiment of the old prophetic and kingly offices as He was of the priestly. If, therefore, kings may now reign by Christ's authority, and men may preach in His name, without obscuring the glory of the Divine Sovereignty, or overshadowing His paramount claim to be the great Teacher of truth and righteousness, is there not a manifest inconsistency in asserting that the exercise of the priesthood by others, in His behalf, necessarily detracts from the completeness of His mediation? "The witness of Scripture" seems to contradict the assertion, for the prophets were inspired to predict the continuance of the priesthood in the Church of the Gentiles. In Isaiah we read, "I will take of them for priests and Levites, saith the Lord" (Isaiah lxvi. 21). Jeremiah echoed the same: "Neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before Me... to do sacrifice continually" (Jer. xxxiii. 18); and the scroll of prophecy concludes with a repetition of the same truth: "He shall purify the sons of Levi. . . that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness" (Mal. iii. 3). It has been argued that because the title of " priest" is not given to the ministry in the New Testament, the prophets could not have intended to predict the perpetuation of the identical office, and that they drew their imagery perforce from existing circumstances. It is a plausible objection, but it will not bear examination. The prophetic imagery cannot always, it is true, be exactly realized; but it could never be used to foreshadow anything essentially different. The principle underlying it must remain, though the terms which embody it may be changed. It matters but little to know what the Christian minister was called in the beginning; but it is of the utmost importance what he did. The great dramatist taught this very forcibly, when he made the impersonation of Satan advise, that in dealing with theological questions much stress should be laid upon names, and no notice taken of facts. It will be our endeavour, then, to discover what functions the ministry claimed to perform. But before doing this, we have to meet the objection that the prophecies we have quoted were fully satisfied by "the universal priesthood," or, as it is commonly called, "the priesthood of the laity," of which S. John and S. Peter spoke, "hath made us," i.e., all Christians, "kings and priests unto God." "Ye," i.e., the whole Church addressed, "are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices ;" and again, "ye are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people" (Exodus xix. 6). Now God had said precisely the same of all Israel, and the Apostles were only quoting His words. But Israel had, within the national priesthood, a special and exclusive priesthood-so exclusive, so fenced and guarded by a wall of separation, that none of the "holy nation" might pass it without incurring the wrath of God. Korah and his company rebelled against this exclusiveness, crying against those whom God had set apart, "ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy (Numbers xvi. 3), and they drew upon themselves condign punishment. We have no right to suppose that the Apostles overlooked the complete analogy which the use of the quotation would naturally suggest, and in speaking of the Christian resemblance to the Jews in the one characteristic, disallowed the co-ordinate truth of their resemblance in the other. Indeed, Holy Scripture testifies to the fact that the Apostles recognised both; for the authority of S. Jude is no less weighty than that of S. John and S. Peter, when he asserts, without any qualification, that there were some in the Christian Church who had "perished in the gainsaying of Core." If Christianity possessed no special and exclusive priesthood, none could have incurred the sin of Korah, and certainly none would have received his doom. The conclusion, then, that we draw from the evidence of Scripture is, that the Aaronic priesthood, in its most essential features, was carried on into the Catholic Church; and this will be still further corroborated when we have examined the nature of the commission given by Christ to the Apostles. For this they were constantly being prepared during the whole of His earthly ministry. Sometimes it was represented to them under familiar figures; sometimes, directly. "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." The charge of the keys had a twofold significance. Every Jewish scribe at his ordination received at the hands of the presiding Rabbi a key, as the symbol of his duty to unlock the treasures of the Mosaic law, and the intricacies of the Mishnah. It explains the allusion where our Lord denounced the lawyers, i.e. the Scribes, saying, "Ye have taken away the key of knowledge." Again, a key was embroidered on the official robe of the Jewish chamberlain or steward, who guarded the royal presence, signifying that he was charged with the power of admission and exclusion. It was said of Eliakim, when put in the place of Shebna, "the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open and none shall shut; and he shall shut and none shall open" (Isaiah xxii. 22). Another figure under which the commission was described was this: "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." To bind and to loose were household phrases in the Jewish schools for prohibiting and allowing. We could, without difficulty, gather out of the Talmud a hundred, probably a thousand, instances of this usage. No one influenced the later legislation of the Jews more than the two famous rivals, Shammai and Hillel-the one, rigidly conservative; the other, liberal and lax. Hence the familiar formula on disputed points of law, "Shammai binds; Hillel looses.” Here, then, we have two figures, one of them twofold-figures foreshadowing the triple office of the apostolate, as teachers, stewards, and legislators. Three other functions were spoken of in direct terms. They were all partly covered by the above, and certainly involved in the stewardship, and so the Church in all aftertime freely acknow. ledged, ever speaking, for instance, of the absolving gift as "the power of the keys;" but they needed to be emphasized, and more distinctly described. The first was the administration of baptism: "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." The second was the oblation of the Christian sacrifice: "Do this in remembrance of Me;" or, as it would naturally be interpreted by Jews, seeing that one of the terms was exclusively sacrificial, "celebrate this as My memorial." The third was the ministry of reconciliation: "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." Considering all this, it is difficult to feel that the Apostles' commission was not as strictly sacerdotal as any that had been entrusted to priests under the law. It has been supposed, however, that the Apostles were treated exceptionally in this matter, and that whatever Divine power or authority they received was delegated to themselves alone, as part of the legacy of miracle, the lingering traces of Christ's immediate Presence, left to aid them in the superhuman work of converting an incredulous world. It will help us to estimate the value of such a theory aright, if we can draw a line of demarcation between their ordination gift and their Pentecostal endowment. Men have been so dazzled by the manifest grandeur of Pentecost, with all its miraculous circumstance, that they have ignored the quieter, but for the ministry even more important, scene in the upper chamber on the first Easter-day. In the latter we believe they were entrusted with all that was needed for the permanent work of the ministry; at the former, they were enabled, with superadded power, to act as the pioneers of a new and despised religion. It is not, however, the common belief; for not a few speak as though they were "ordained" at an early stage of our Lord's mission, while even more regard Whitsuntide as their ordination day. The Apostles were chosen, called, gathered into the sacred company or college; they were even sent out on a temporary mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but they were not ordained till after the Resurrection. We read, it is true, in the authorised version of S. Mark's Gospel, that "He ordained twelve" in the second year of his ministry; but in the revised version it is more correctly rendered, "appointed." That appointment admitted of their preaching, even of working miracles for a time in Christ's Name; but it gave them no priestly office, no stewardship of the Mysteries of God. The time for this had not yet arrived; for they could not be commissioned to admit into the New Covenant before it had been ratified by the Blood of the Son of Man. And it was not till He had received authority by His Death and Passion that He was able to delegate it to others: "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth; go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name," &c. Again, it was only after the Precious Blood had been shed, which cleanseth from all sin, that He enjoined His Apostles to apply it to individual souls: "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them." If it be said that death had not actually sealed His work when He bade them celebrate the other sacrament, the exigency of circumstances may be urged as the reason. At least, it was in His eyes when His body was already being broken, as S. Paul expresses it (1 Cor. xi. 24); and He knew that all would be over before they could execute the command He was giving. All this would lead us to conclude that they could not have been "ordained" at any earlier stage; their ordination was reserved till the evening of the Resurrection day. Now what are we told about it? We are prepared at once for a mystery, by the pregnant words with which it was ushered in: "As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." This is the very charter of their Divine mission. They were being sent to do as He had done, in teaching, in admitting into and excluding from God's household, in legislation, and in the ministry of reconciliation; and as Christ had been sealed for His office by the unction of the Holy Ghost, so were they. We cannot doubt that the Divine Spirit entered into them every bit as truly in the upper chamber as He fell upon the Son of Man at His baptism in the Jordan. It was not merely a promise, but the gift was then conveyed. Nothing less will satisfy ,, the circumstances of the case. Christ's words cannot be detached from His symbolical action: "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." In and with that inspiration they were anointed to their office. One subject connected with the gift calls for observation; the only point upon which the Great Head of the Church thought it necessary to dwell, when He was investing them with their official powers, was that of Absolution. It was involved in the assurance: "As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you; for it was not by His own Divine right that Christ had said to the sick of the palsy, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," but by virtue of the commission which He had received. He expressly asserted that it was in the exercise of a delegated power: "The Son of Man hath power "—not in heaven but-" on earth to forgive sins"; and the same commission He handed on to those who should exercise for Him the ministry of reconciliation. He knew the natural incredulity they would feel; it had called forth the disparaging sneer and the startled enquiry of the Scribes: "This Man blasphemeth"; "Who can forgive sins but God only?" So it was that alone of the ministerial functions which He delegated to them, He thought fit to emphasize this. The Apostles, then, we believe, received on the day of the Resurrection their full and complete authority for the ordinary work of the Christian ministry. It is when we are able to separate this, their ordination proper, from the Pentecostal gifts, which were subsidiary and special, that we realize how impossible it is to feel that they were endowed with ministerial powers only for a temporary mission. As far as their ministerial qualifications were concerned, Pentecost brought them only temporary endowments. These were wholly miraculous, and could not therefore be intended to be perpetually renewed. Repetition would destroy the very purpose for which the miracles were originally wrought. They were needed for the first pioneers of the Faith, as visible credentials of their Divine mission; and so the Apostles were bidden to tarry at Jerusalem till they were endued with power-dynamis, it is nearly always in the New Testament miraculous power-with boldness of speech, with the knowledge, perhaps, of foreign languages which they had never learned, with quickened memory to recall the works and words of their Master, and with healing virtue. All were extraordinary ; and their exercise would serve to demonstrate to a singularly incredulous generation that God was co-operating with their efforts; but when that incredulity should be overcome none of them would be essential to their office, and so the Church has always taught that they were only temporary. In further proof of this, it may be noted that there is no evidence that they could be used except for the special purpose of convincing the gainsayer. If they could have been, we should not have read of S. Paul sorrowing over the illness of Epaphroditus, or being obliged to leave Trophimus sick at Miletum. He did not exercise the supernatural gift of healing in their behalf because, as they were already Christians, such a demonstration was not needed for purposes of conviction. Now, it is impossible to place any of what are accounted the permanent gifts of the ministry in the same category as these. We can easily understand why S. Peter should be preternaturally endowed with boldness of speech for a special emergency. The sequel of his |