Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

The argument here must turn upon what ordination means in the view of Congregationalists, and according to Scripture, and the manner in which it is described in cases of undoubted occurrence. Romanists and other prelatical sects make it a sacrament by which special grace is conveyed through the appointed channel of a succession of episcopally ordained persons descending in an unbroken line from the apostles; and they and others hold that ordination conveys the authority to exercise the office to which a person is ordained; so that, however appointed to it otherwise by the Church, he could not enter upon his duties and so discharge them as that they should be valid, unless ordained by the prescribed ecclesiastical powers. This theory of sacramental grace, or mystical effect, or authoritative conferment of power in ordination, we discard as unreasonable, unscriptural, and of pernicious tendency. The Congregational view is well expressed in the Cambridge platform, adopted by the churches of New England, assembled, by their "elders and messengers," at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1648, which declares as follows:

“This ordination we account nothing else but the solemn putting a man into his place

and office in the Church, whereunto he has a right before by election; being like the installing of a magistrate in the Commonwealth. Ordination, therefore, is not to go before, but to follow election. The essence and substance of the outward calling of an ordinary officer

in the Church doth not consist in his ordi

nation, but in his voluntary and free election by the Church and his accepting of that election; whereupon is founded that relation between pastor and flock, between such a minister and such a people. Ordination doth not constitute an officer, nor give him the essentials of his office."

Accepting, then, this view of ordination, what case of it can be presented from the New Testament, if not the one in the sixth chapter of the Acts? There was the institution of an office intended

to be permanent in the Church; there was the election of the seven original incumbents; there was the evident acceptance of it on the spot; there was the induction into the office by their being publicly brought forward before the Church in front of the apostles, who there prayed and laid their hands on them. It is true that it was customary to pray on many occasions, and to lay hands upon persons in various relations, civil and ecclesiastical; but that militates not against the fact that when these things were done at the induction of persons into a Church office, they constituted the appropriate ordination. The very persons who object to this form in the case of deacons, insist on it in the case of pastors; and yet not one historic instance can be produced from the New Testament of its use in the ordination of a bishop or pastor. It is referred to as having been used in the setting apart of Timothy to the office of an evangelist (who was not a bishop or pastor, but an itinerant missionary), and in the designation of Paul and Barnabas for a similar work. Yet Paul, in writing to Timothy as to the ordination of proper persons for bishops and for deacons, says subsequently in reference to the whole subject, and therefore to both offices, «Lay hands suddenly on no man." This shows beyond controversy that the laying on of hands was considered a characteristic part of ordination, so that it was used by Paul, in the expression just quoted, to represent the entire service. In the face of this scriptural phraseology and of the attending circumstances of the transaction, it is absurd to deny that "the seven were ordained by prayer and the laying on of hands, in the only sense in which Congregationalists use the word ordination in connection with any office.

[ocr errors]

2. The same report urges that the ordination of deacons proceeds on a false idea as to the nature of their office: that it supposes their office to be spiritual,

where it is only secular, having charge of the charities and other temporal affairs of the church; whereas ordination means the "conveying or recognizing spiritual authority." This objection fills one with astonishment at the confusion of ideas exhibited, and at its degrading conception of the diaconate. It seems to place the duties of the deaconship on a level with those of the trustees of a congregation, or of the sexton of the edifice, and it is based upon a narrow and technical meaning of the word spiritual, wholly inapplicable to the case as a mere secular charge. To such a view I offer in

answer,

(1) The fact that the deaconship is a permanent office of the Christian Church as a spiritual body, and has therefore a spiritual design and spiritual functions.

[ocr errors]

(2) The fact that spiritual qualifications are required, as well as business capacity; for the "seven were not only to be "of honest report" and men "of wisdom," but also "full of the Holy Ghost;" while Timothy was instructed that deacons should be "grave," "not double-tongued," "holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience," and exemplary as heads of families - qualities not essential to a mere secular office.

(3) The fact that their duties are eminently spiritual. It is a singular idea that the appointed distributers of the charities of the Church of Christ, - they who search out his poor, sick and afflicted ones, and sympathize with their sorrows, and who, in the name of the Church and its Master, relieve their wants, as an expression of Christian love and unity, and of the fact that "whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it;" that they who are acting out the faith of the Church in the declaration of Jesus, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," should be said to fill only a secular office! Why, James has described their

work as the whole of religion: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” Deacons are not, indeed, the teaching officers of the Church; they were appointed to relieve the teaching officers from cares which interfered with public instruction; but that does not constitute them secular officers. The outlay of money may be secular in certain circumstances, but not necessarily in its use as part of a spiritual agency. A minister's sermon may be written on very secular paper, and he may deliver it by aid of the secular art of elocution, but his functions are nevertheless spiritual. And all that the Cambridge Platform means, where it says, "The office, therefore, being limited unto the care of the temporal good things of the Church, it extends not to the attendance upon and the administration of the spiritual things thereof, as the word and sacraments and the like," is, that deacons are not pastors, but administrators of charities. Its authors would be far from denying that charity in individuals is a spiritual duty; or that those who carry the charities of the Church to the poor, with sympathy, prayer, and kind counsel, are engaged in spiritual functions. And it appears the more clearly that they did not regard the deaconship as a secular office, to which ordination would be inappropriate, from the fact that they expressly inculcated the duty of ordination to it by the laying on of hands and by prayer.

And then it might have sufficed as a reply to the whole objection, that it is simply an argument to show that it is very inappropriate to do what nevertheless the apostles did, to wit, ordain deacons in the same way with pastors, evangelists, and others, who are supposed to receive some "spiritual authority." But if ordination simply means an orderly introduction to office, it would seem to be as appropriate to one office

as to another. And so the apostles regarded it. And if any have an erroneous view of what ordination means, inconsistent with this, let it be corrected.

ture of designation to accompany prayer for particular persons, seeming to point them out for the divine blessing Thus Jacob at his death blessed the two sons of Joseph, laying his hands on them, and crossing them over to place his right hand on the younger to designate him as the one on whom should come the chief blessing. So Jesus laid his hands on the little children when they were brought to receive his blessing, or as Matthew describes it, where "there were brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them and pray." This use of the hands for designation in prayer naturally led to the same thing in the bestowment of miraculous powers on believers, or of healing mercies on the sick, as where Peter and John laid hands on the disciples at Samaria, and Ananias on the blind Saul of Tarsus at Damascus. The idea of designation, again, would bring the same form into use, in the setting apart persons to a new and specific office or work, especially if prayer was offered at the same time in their behalf. Hence, when Moses publicly designated Joshua to succeed him as leader of the nation, he was directed to lay his hand upon him before the people, and did so. (Consult Numbers xxvii. 15-23.)

3. An objection urged in other quarters is, that in the apostolic times the laying on of hands had a specific and peculiar meaning which cannot now attach to it, because it denoted and was always accompanied by the bestowment of the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost. This objection, it will be observed, contradicts the first, which claimed that the laying on of hands was so common on all occasions of prayer that it did not signify ordination at the induction into office of the seven. This declares it to have been so specific as to apply only to the communication of supernatural grace and power. If this were true, it would apply only to the laying on of hands, and not to public ordination by other methods. Moreover, if the objection be valid, it holds equally good against laying on hands in the ordination of a pastor or of an evangelist. And there the Episcopal ordination service is exposed to just criticism; for the officiating prelate as he lays hands on the candidate for the ministry says, "Receive 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." Certainly it is difficult to justify such language; for no miraculous spiritual gifts are conveyed, and no prelate can claim that he dispenses the ordinary influences of the Holy Ghost. But no such idea necessarily attaches to the laying on of hands, though,in apostolic days there often, and perhaps usually, accompaniment of special gifts. These are not mentioned as conferred in the ordination of the seven, who are said previously to have been "full of the Holy Ghost," including, no doubt, both the ordinary and special influences of the Spirit. But laying on of hands had been customary for ages in other connections, and, therefore, did not necessarily convey that idea. It was a natural ges- office that was to be held for a brief term

was an

Similarly the apostles set apart the seven original deacons by the same sign of designation; so Timothy was set apart to be an evangelist by Paul and the elders or pastors of the Church; so Paul himself, with Barnabas, was symbolically set apart at Antioch to an important missionary labor, having been previously designated by name by the Holy Spirit; and so he directed Timothy to "lay hands " on those who should enter upon the office of pastor or of deacon. It is simply a natural and appropriate gesture, giving emphasis and direction to the accompanying words of prayer and declaration.

4. Some have felt that there was an

incongruity in ordaining persons to an

only, as is the case in churches which limit the term of office with deacons to one, two, or three years. This may be a valid argument, so far as it goes, against limiting the term, which is not mentioned in scripture; but it can hardly operate against an appropriate induction into office, which is recorded in scripture. And yet, in the civil state, a governor, who is elected for one year, or at the most for two years, is as regularly inaugurated as is the president, who serves four years, or as a king has a coronation, who rules for life. And while touching on this point, I may say, that though formerly favorable to limited and brief terms in the deaconship, I incline of late more and more to the primitive and still customary method of a tenure limited only by good behavior and the pleasure of the Church. The idea of a limited term was derived from a false analogy between the deaconship and the ruling elders of Presbyterian churches, who possess all the power of the Church, and therefore should be elected, like civil magistrates, for limited terms. But deacons have no ecclesiastical power, singly or collectively, more than other members, and therefore need no such check. Moreover, the Church always has control of the deaconship, and has a perfect right, at any time, to vacate the office. If, therefore, we think how much is gained in point of moral influence by the continuance for many years of the same good man in that simple but honorable position, and how much incidental evil comes with the frequent elections to the office, and also remember, that in large churches, in this changing land, there will but too often occur vacancies by death and removal, we shall be more inclined to walk, in this particular, in the steps of our fathers.

5. Yet others, especially among the laity, object to the ordination of deacons, that it does not seem appropriate in the case of an office which does not require the entire time of the incumbent; that

it is proper in the case of a minister, whose whole life is devoted to his official work; but does not harmonize with a deacon, who, during the week, is occupied as a mechanic or farmer, as a merchant or physician. In reply, it may be said that the spiritual functions of the deacon are none the less worthy of honor because of his daily industry; that ordination respects simply his position in the church; that a due consideration of the true unity of all Christian lifewhether work or worship would take away all ground for such an objection; that the simple fact of scriptural precedent overrides it; and that Paul thought it not beneath his dignity to make tents during six days and to preach on the seventh, and recommended the elders of Ephesus to do likewise. Acts xvii. 34, 35.

--

Having thus set forth what appears to be the doctrine of scripture on the subject before us, it may not be unwise to inquire what have been the opinions and practice of the Congregational churches from the revival of the simple New Testament polity, two and a half centuries ago, to the present time.

What was the opinion of John Robinson, the pastor of the Pilgrim Church before it sailed for America, may be gathered from his general remarks in his "Justification of Separation from the Church of England" (Works, vol. ii. p. 440):

"I do, then, acknowledge, that where there are already lawful officers in a Church by and to which others are called, there the former, upon that election, are to ordain and appoint the latter. The officers, being the ministers

(servants) of the Church, are to execute the determinations and judgments of the church under the Lord-the censures of deposition and excommunication, by pronouncing the sentence of judgment, and by it, as by the sword of the spirit drawn out, cutting off the officer from his office, and the member from the body, and all communion with it. So are they to execute the people's election, by pronouncing the person elect to his office, charging him with the faithful execution of it, with imposition of hands and prayer."

[blocks in formation]

The venerable John Cotton (in his Doctrine of the Church, p. 10, as quoted in the Congregationalist of January 27, 1865) says,

"When the church hath chosen and called an officer, they present him to the elders (i. e. of their own church), (1) who doe ordaine him, if he be a deacon, with prayer and imposition of hands, (2) and with fasting also, if he be an elder."

Prof. Upham, in his "Ratio Disciplinæ," declares that in modern days the practice has fallen into disuse, but argues that it is scriptural; that it was practised by all the early Congregational churches; that no reason can well be given why it has been neglected; and that there ought certainly to be some public service in the induction of deacons. (§ 43.)

Dr. Samuel Hopkins, in his System of Doctrine (part ii. chap. 5), states the matter of the deaconship, as to its nature and the ordination thereto, in its scriptural form, as given in the sixth of Acts. Dr. Dwight is quite earnest on this point. (Works, Sermon, clv.) Quoting the account in the Acts he says:

"This also is an authoritative example of the manner in which deacons are to be introduced into every Church. It is the example of inspired men, and was therefore the pleasure of the Spirit of God. There is no hint in the New Testament, nor even in Ecclesiastical History, that they were ever introduced in any other manner. At the same time there is no precept revoking or altering the authority or influence of this example. It stands, therefore, in full force, and requires that all persons chosen by the Church to this office should be consecrated to the duties of it in the same manner. It is to be observed further, that if any such alteration had existed in periods subsequent to the apostolic age, it

would have been totally destitute of any authority to us. This mode of consecration has in fact been disused in New England to a considerable extent. For this, however, there seems to have been no reason of any value. So far as I have been able to gain information concerning the subject, the disuse was originated at first and has been gradually extended by mere inattention; nor is it capable, so far as I know, of any defence."

Punchard, in his "View of Congregationalism," says, (Part iv. § 2,)

"Their acceptance being signified, it is consistent with the ancient usage of our denomination to set them apart to their work by prayer and the imposition of the hands of the pastor. Our churches have not, however, been very uniform or particular in the practice of ordaining deacons for more than a hundred years past. Cotton Mather tells us,

that even in his day (1726) in many of these churches this rite of confirmation is fallen into a desuetude.' So at the present time, some of our churches ordain their deacons by the imposition of hands; others do not, perhaps from the apprehension that false impressions may be received respecting the design of the rite, and the nature of the office. But if it be distinctly explained, that this ceremony is simply the act of designating and setting apart in a solemn manner these men to the appropriate work of the deaconship, I can see no sufficient reason for disregarding ancient, and what appears to have been apostolic usage."

Dr. Leonard Bacon, in his "Manual for Young Church Members," in setting forth primitive and Congregational doctrines, says, pp. 59, 60:

"Ordination was simply the public inauguration of a man to a particular work or office. It seems to have been done uniformly with prayer and the laying on of hands. The imposition of hands is an ancient Oriental form of benediction. This benediction, this solemn commendation of the individual to the grace and blessing of God, is all that was meant by the imposition of hands in the inauguration of Church officers, or in the setting apart of a Christian teacher to the sacred employment of preaching the gospel." (Compare also p. 187.)

Rev. Dr. Enoch Pond, in his treatise entitled "The Church," says, (p. 73,).

« VorigeDoorgaan »