"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained
you, and that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your
fruit should remain."—St. John xv. 16.
THE service of this day invites us to consider the nature and
commission of that ministry, by which Christians all over the world are
made partakers of heavenly and spiritual blessings.
On this point, as on most others, it is obvious that the New
Testament does no where furnish a regular and orderly course of
instruction, such as on many great subjects we find in our Creeds,
Articles, and Catechism. But the mind and will of our Divine Master may
be gathered plainly enough, at least by those who are willing to show a
reasonable respect to the witness of the early Church.
St. Luke, in the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, informs us,
that our LORD was not taken up, until "after that He, through the Holy
Ghost, had given commandments unto the Apostles whom He had
chosen;—being seen of them" at various times during as much as "forty
days," and "speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of GOD."
Then, doubtless, He gave them instruction in what method and order to
proceed, what kind of ministry to settle in His Church. Who would not
wish to know what was the tenor of those conversations? But the Holy
Ghost, in His unsearchable wisdom, has not seen fit directly to put them
on record: an omission which appears very significant, when compared
with the minute register which the Gospels supply of many former
discourses. So it is, that on the occasion, which would seem to promise
most information concerning the nature of CHRIST’S kingdom, instead of
finding any report of what our blessed SAVIOUR said, we
find a report of what His Apostles did. Their Acts and Letters
take place of the desired memorial of His parting instructions. Is not
this a hint to us all, on authority which cannot safely be despised,
that we must look to the actual conduct and system of the early
Church for a true notion of the things pertaining to "the kingdom of
GOD," of which our LORD then spake to His Apostles. However early, on
minute points, partial errors may have crept in, is it not evident to
common sense, that the system which we trace back in the Church to the
very generation next following the Apostles, must be in all great points
the very system enjoined by our LORD, and partially disclosed in the
subsequent history of His servants?
It follows, that in order to make out our SAVIOUR’S will on any point
relating to the discipline and proceedings of His Church, the first
portion of Scripture to which our attention is directed is the Acts of
the holy Apostles.
Now, the very first Act of the Apostles, after CHRIST was gone out of
their sight, was that commemorated this day;—the ordination of Matthias
in the room of the traitor Judas. That ordination is related very
minutely. Every particular of it is full of instruction; but at present
I wish to draw attention to one circumstance more especially; namely,
the time when it occurred. It was contrived (if one may say so) exactly
to fall within the very short interval which elapsed between the
departure of our LORD and the arrival of the Comforter in His place: on
that "little while," during which the Church was comparatively left
alone in the world. Then it was that St. Peter rose and declared with
authority that the time was come for supplying the vacancy which Judas
had made. "One," said he, "must be ordained;" and without delay they
proceeded to the ordination. Of course, St. Peter must have had from our
LORD express authority for this step. Otherwise it would seem most
natural to defer a transaction so important until the unerring Guide,
the Holy Ghost, should have come among them, as they knew He would in a
few days. One the other hand, since the Apostles were eminently Apostles
of our Incarnate LORD, since their very being, as Apostles,
depended entirely on their personal mission from Him (which is the
reason why catalogues are given of them, with such scrupulous care, in
so many of the holy books):—in that regard one should naturally have
expected that he Himself before His delegation would have supplied the
vacancy by personal designation. But we see it was not His pleasure to
do so. As the Apostles afterwards brought on the ordination sooner, so
He had deferred it longer than might have been expected. Both ways it
should seem as if there were a purpose of bringing the event within
those ten days, during which, as I said, the Church was left to herself;
left to exercise her faith and hope, much as Christians are left now,
without any miraculous aid or extraordinary illumination from
above. Then, at that moment of the New Testament history, in which the
circumstances of believers corresponded most nearly to what they have
been since miracles and inspiration ceased—just at that time it pleased
our LORD that a fresh Apostles should be consecrated, with authority and
commission as ample as the former enjoyed. In a word, it was His will
that the eleven Disciples alone, not Himself personally, should name the
successor of Judas; and that they chose the right person, He gave
testimony very soon after, by sending His Holy Spirit on St. Matthias,
as richly as one St. John, St. James, or St. Peter.
Thus the simple consideration of the time when Matthias was
ordained, confirms two points of no small importance to the well-being
of CHRIST’S kingdom on earth. First, it shows that whoever are regularly
commissioned by the Apostles, our LORD will consider those persons as
commissioned and ordained by Himself. Secondly, it proves that such
power to ordain is independent of those apostolical functions, which may
be properly called extraneous and miraculous. It existed before those
functions began; why then may it not still continue, however entirely
they have passed away?
We must not pretend to be wise above what is written; but there is, I
trust, nothing presumptuous or unscriptural in supposing that JESUS
CHRIST, the great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, purposely abstained
from nominating St. Matthias in his life-time, in order that Christians
in all times might understand that the ordained successors of the
Apostles are as truly bishops under Him, as ever the Apostles were
themselves.
For this is the constant doctrine of the ancient Church, delivered in
express terms by our LORD in the text, "Ye have not chosen me,
but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and
bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain."
It may seem strange that our LORD should deem it necessary to guard
His Disciples against such a notion as that they had chosen Him, rather
than He them: called as they had been, when they least expected it, from
their daily employments of fishermen, publicans, and the like. But "for
our sakes, no doubt, this is written;" to check an error which CHRIST
foresaw would too generally prevail in His Church, especially in these
latter days, which pride themselves so much on light and liberty. The
error I mean is, that of imagining that Church communion is a voluntary
thing, which people may adopt or no, (I will not say at their own
pleasure, though too many go as far as that, but) as they seem to
find it for the time most edifying. Another kindred notion is, that
the Christian ministry is also a voluntary thing; that there is no real
difference between clergy and laity, any more than is enacted by the law
of the land for mere decency and order’s sake; but that otherwise a man
who can and will do good as a clergyman is to all intents and purposes a
clergyman enough.
These are not very uncommon notions. But take them at their best, and
are they in effect any better than as if St. Paul and the other Apostles
had considered themselves as choosing CHRIST instead of being chosen by
CHRIST? He who reasons so, is he not chargeable with setting up his own
calculation against the declared will and system of our LORD?
Hear now on the other hand the very doctrine of the Church
Apostolical. JESUS CHRIST, the chief Shepherd and Bishop, commits the
pastoral office to whom He pleases; in the first place, to His Apostles,
and after them, to all whom they, by the help of His ordinary grace,
shall appoint; which latter proposition you have just heard clearly made
out from the ordination of St. Matthias. Therefore, although there be
many Bishops, yet the Episcopal office is but one. the lines of the true
Catholic Church are drawn out, as the Psalmist says, to the ends of the
world, over all lands; but trace them back, and they all meet in the
same centre, JESUS CHRIST. Therefore it is all one Church, and
not a thousand independent churches, as they would make it, who boast of
choosing CHRIST, instead of humbly and thankfully acknowledging the
choice which He has made of them, in that He has cast their lot within
reach of His ministers and sacraments.
This view, so clearly deducible from the promise of our LORD, and the
conduct of His Apostles, is most unanswerably confirmed by the whole
history of the Primitive Church. Every where the Bishops were the chief
pastors, and the government and order of the Church was vested in them.
To separate from them, except they were proved grossly heretical, was
accounted schism. Why? Because it was universally understood, that the
Bishops were the connecting chain which bound the successive generations
of Christians to the first generation, the holy Apostles; nay, and to
our LORD JESUS CHRIST Himself. For the believers of those days were made
to the Church through the Apostles: so that if they broke
off their connection with the Apostles, they broke off their connection
with CHRIST.
Would you hear some of the very words of those holy men of old? Take
the following, which are part of a letter written by St. Ignatius, the
friend of the chiefest of the Apostles, when he was on the verge of
martyrdom. They are some of his last words, written to warn the friends
for whom he was most anxious, against the heresies which were springing
up in the Church.
"By submitting yourself to your Bishop as to JESUS CHRIST, you
convince me that you guide your lives by no rule of man’s invention, but
by the rule of JESUS CHRIST, who died for us, that ye, believing in His
death, might escape altogether from death. It follows, of course, that
in no part of your conduct ye separate yourselves from your Bishop:
which thing also ye now practise."
No test could be shorter or more simple. "You are in communion with
your Bishop, humbly receiving from him, or those by him deputed, the
genuine word and Sacraments of JESUS CHRIST: therefore, I make no
question but you are also in communion with our LORD JESUS CHRIST
Himself; at least, as far as Church Privileges go; as far as I or man
can judge."
Surely the holy martyr, St. Ignatius, was as good a judge of what
Christian communion depends on, as any person can be supposed in our
days. And we see that he judges of it, not by those tests which we now
hear most insisted on; not by convictions, and emotions, and
highly-wrought feelings; but by the simple fact of adherence to that
system, which our LORD himself has established for our salvation. Now,
we know from every page of St. Ignatius, what his view of that system
was. It was the system of Christian ordinances, administered by Bishops,
with Priests and Deacons under them. That, in the mind of St. Ignatius,
was the sure mark of the Church of GOD.
Nor was this a mere private opinion of his: it was rather the
constant tradition of the Church Universal. what is very remarkable, it
was the tradition not only the sound part of the Church, but of the
heretics also. In those early days, even those who corrupted the
doctrine of the Church seldom or never dared to breathe any thing
against the Apostolical Succession of her Bishops. To do so, if they
possibly could, would have been greatly to their purpose; because one
very plain argument by which their misrepresentations of doctrine used
to be confuted, was by appealing to the traditional account of the same
doctrines, preserved in many of the most famous Churches, by means of
the regular succession of Bishops. Some of the Fathers thus reckon up
the Bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, for more than three
hundred years, from the time of the Apostle, and are thereby enabled to
trace back as far the true interpretation of certain hard places of
Scripture, relating to the great truths of the Gospel. The heretics who
disputed those truths, no doubt, would have been too happy, could they
have proved that the chain of tradition wanted a link; that the
succession from the Apostles was not clearly made out, or that being
made out, it signified nothing. But the ground they used to take was
quite different. they never dreamed of denying the past
succession: it was too certainly known to be denied; but they took very
great care to secure a future succession for themselves. They
hardly ever broke off from the Church, until they had got some Bishop to
patronize their heresy: through whom they might continue the Apostolical
commission in a line of pastors of their own.
Thus as well the enemies of the Church as her friends bore witness in
those early days to a truth which too many of both seem now agreed on
forgetting: That Episcopal Authority is the very bond which unites
Christians to each other and to CHRIST: so that it was apparently a kind
of proverb with them, Without the Bishop do nothing in the Church.
What is more, the teaching of the Primitive Church brought this
matter home to every man’s own soul, not only on the general ground of
submission to all our LORD’S ordinances, but because the bread and wine
in the Eucharist was not accounted the true Sacrament of CHRIST, without
CHRIST’S warrant given to the person administering: which warrant, the
Fathers well knew, could only be had through His Apostles and their
successors.
Hear again the same St. Ignatius. "Let that LORD’S Supper be counted
a LORD’S Supper indeed, which is ministered by the bishop, or by one
having his commission." Observe, Ignatius, the friend of the Apostles,
reckons the Sacrament no Sacrament, if the consecrating minister want
the Bishop’s commission. Could St. Ignatius possibly mistake the mind of
the Apostles on that point, he who had conversed familiarly with them at
the time when the Church was used to "continue daily in breaking
of bread?"
And with him agreed the whole Church of GOD for the first fifteen
hundred years: knowing that when our LORD said, "Do this in remembrance
of Me," His Apostles only were present; therefore non but they and their
deputies could be said to have His warrant for blessing that bread and
cup. And this is a matter pertaining to each man’s salvation. For that
bread and cup are the appointed mean, whereby the faithful are to
partake of CHRIST’S Body and Blood offered for their sins.
Can any devout man, considering this, reckon it a matter of small
moment, whether the minister with whom he communicates be a minister by
apostolical succession or no? In the judgment of the Church it makes no
less difference than this: Whether the bread and cup which he partakes
of shall be to him CHRIST’S Body and Blood or no. I repeat it: in the
judgment of the Church, the Eucharist administered without apostolical
commission, may to pious minds be a very edifying ceremony, but it is
not that blessed thing which our SAVIOUR graciously meant it to be: it
is not "verily and in deed taking and receiving" the Body and Blood of
Him, our Incarnate LORD.
Even as St. Paul seems to intimate, when he so pointedly asks the
Corinthians, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the
Communion of the Blood of CHRIST? The bread which we break, is it
not the Communion of the Body of CHRIST? Why such a stress on the words,
"which we bless," "which we break;" except because the
Corinthians knew (and they could only know by Apostolical teaching),
that the agency of the Apostles in blessing and breaking was
needed to assure us that the holy signs really convey the thing
signified?
Thus you see every thing concurs; the ordination of St. Matthias, the
promise of our LORD, the hints found elsewhere in holy Scripture, the
express laws of the Universal Church, the constant doctrine of the
friends of the Apostles;—all agree to show that Communion with GOD
incarnate, such Communion as He offers in His holy Supper, cannot be
depended on without an Apostolical Ministry.
To think otherwise is the error of those, who, mixing up human
inventions with the everlasting Gospel, take upon them to "choose
CHRIST," instead of humbly owning themselves "chosen by Him," and
labouring to bear fruit accordingly.
But still more fatal will be our error, if having this high
privilege, we cause it to be reproached by our abuse or negligent using.
We, by GOD’S blessing, are among those, who, through an Apostolical
Ministry, have constant access to the Body and Blood of our REDEEMER.
What if we be found no more exemplary, no humbler, no more constant in
our piety, than those whose possession of the means of grace is so much
more questionable than ours? There is a prophetic warning against such:
"You only have I know of all the families of the earth: therefore I will
punish you for all your iniquities." There is also yet a more awful
warning from Him who will come to be our Judge: "Thou, Capernaum, which
are exalted unto Haven, shalt be brought down to hell; for if the mighty
works which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would
have remained until this day. But I say unto you, that it shall be more
tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee."
