CHAPTER XLI.

THE SACRED MINISTRY.

WHEN Our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, we might have supposed He would have continued upon earth to proclaim His Gospel, with the new power and acceptance derived from that crowning evidence of His divinity. Or if it were necessary for Him to return to heaven, there to present the blood of the sacrifice before the mercy-seat, and to remain in heaven to prepare a place for us, we might have thought that He would have made the angels His ministers. They proclaimed His first advent, and shall proclaim His second coming; we might have thought that by their trumpet-tongues also He would have proclaimed the Gospel to all the world, and by their pure ministration have given His gifts to men. But no; He chose to make men His ministers, and to put His power upon them, and to them to commit the word of His Gospel and the sacraments of His grace, and by their ministry to carry on His work for the salvation of the world.

We can see two obvious reasons for this.

St. Paul gives us one reason why "this treasure was put into earthen vessels," viz., "that the excellency of the power might be of God and not of us" (2 Cor. iv. 7). · If the glorious and mighty angels had been the preachers of the Word, if they had stood at the altars of the Church as ministers of the sacraments, men would have been in great danger of attributing the results to their superhuman wisdom

and gracious power; but they cannot fall into this error when they see that the ministers of Christ are but men of like passions with themselves;" they must see then that "the power is of God" (Acts xiv. 15).

Another reason why, while the angels are engaged in other ministries "for them which shall be heirs of salvation," Jesus chose men as Ministers of His grace, is no doubt this, that it is the Son of Man who is the Redeemer, and that none are so fit as men to be His representatives. "He took not on Him the nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham" (Heb. ii. 16).

In the patriarchal dispensation the head of the family or tribe was its priest. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, Jethro, are illustrations. (See Job i. 5, and xiii. 8.)

When God brought Israel out of Egypt, He transferred the priesthood to Aaron and his family. Korah, the Levite, thought he had as much claim to be a priest as Aaron, "seeing all the congregation were holy, every one of them, and the Lord was among them as in the holy place of Sinai ;" and God showed, first, by the fire which issued from the tabernacle and burnt up the unauthorised offerers of incense, and subsequently His acceptance of Aaron's intercession for the people, and by the budding of Aaron's rod, that "no man taketh this office upon himself,” but that it was by God's appointment only that any man could acceptably minister before Him in holy things.

Again, after the coming of our Lord, He took away the priesthood from the sons of Aaron, and appointed others to exercise the sacred ministry in the Church.

It is with the ministry of the Christian dispensation that we have now to deal, and we shall show that Christ did, in the Christian dispensation, choose certain men and place them in a special relation to Himself, and to their brethren; that He provided for the continuance of this ministerial

order to the end of time; that He gave command that they should be maintained at the cost of the Church; and gave them authority to rule the Church in His Name.

That He did choose certain men, and commit to them the rule of the Church, and the ministry of the Word and sacraments is a fact so important that it is told three times over in Scripture, and the catalogue of the names of the apostles is thrice repeated. It was done with suitable solemnity. After spending the night in solitary prayer, in the morning He called His disciples unto Him (Luke vi. 12), and from among them He chose twelve, whom He would, and ordained them to be apostles. He gave them an ordination charge, which is recorded in the tenth chapter of St. Matthew, in the course of which He declares them to be His representatives: "He that receiveth you, receiveth Me ; and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me" (Matt. x. 40).

So on another occasion He chose seventy, and sent them two and two before His face; and giving them a similar charge, He said. "He that heareth you heareth Me; and he that despiseth you despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me despiseth Him that sent Me" (Luke x. 16).

These were temporary commissions; they were foreshadowings of the future ministry of the Church. The commission to the seventy was not renewed, and the men were scattered again to their own homes. The twelve our Lord still kept with Him, teaching and training them for their future office. After His resurrection, He gave them a new and permanent commission, "He breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you" (John xx. 22). "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mark xvi. 15); the Gospel of "repentance and remission of sins in His name" (Luke xxiv. 47). "Make disciples of

all nations, and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world" (Matt. xxviii. 19, 20).

After our Lord's ascension the apostles proceeded to fill the empty place of Judas. They first selected two, and referred the decision between these two to the determination of Jesus Christ. "Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of these two Thou hast chosen" (Acts i. 24). "The lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the apostles." It is a striking illustration of the fact that the apostles formed an order of men with authority and power different from ordinary disciples, which is given in this appointment. They appointed two men, both perfectly qualified for the apostolate. One was designated by God's providence, and "was numbered with the eleven apostles," and exercised their Divine authority and supernatural powers; the other fell back into the ranks of ordinary discipleship, and is no more heard of.

Ten years afterwards Barnabas and Paul were nominated by the Holy Ghost to be apostles. Barnabas was a distinguished member of the Church before Paul was converted; it was he who took Paul by the hand and vouched for him when the rest doubted him. It was when Barnabas was delegated by the apostles to take charge of the important work begun among the Gentiles at Antioch, that he sought out Paul in his retirement at Tarsus, and engaged him as an assistant. In the list of distinguished members of the Church at Antioch, Barnabas is named at the head, and Paul at the end of the list. They knelt side by side when the prophets, at the Holy Spirit's command, laid their hands on them, and "separated" them for mission work among the Gentiles.

At first Barnabas took the

lead. At the commencement of the second missionary journey, when Paul objected to take Mark, Barnabas did not defer to him; but the two separated, each taking his own minister, and they went their several ways as co-equal apostles.

The title apostle was applied to others besides, and pretenders to the apostolic office are mentioned by St. Paul (2 Cor. xi.), and by St. John (Rev. ii. 2).

We seem to be precluded by a consideration of the history from placing the apostles on a footing which severs them from the ordinary ministry of the Church; the apostolate seems to merge into the ordinary ministry by insensible degrees. First, the twelve ordained by our Lord (and the fact that one of them fell is not without its significance in this point of view); then the one elected by the eleven into the place of Judas; next: Paul and Barnabas. Paul's claim to the apostleship was not undisputed by his contemporaries; yet we know he "was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles." And though Paul was miraculously taught by Christ, and Barnabas was not (because doubtless he had been a follower of Jesus, and had the personal knowledge which Paul had not), yet they were clearly coequal apostles.

Again, the apostolate and episcopate overlap one another; there is no period where one ends and the other begins. The distinction seems to be that an apostle was a missionary founder of churches which he continued to govern, while a bishop was a resident governor of a Church already founded, the first bishop being appointed thereto by the apostolic founder. In some cases the apostolate merged into the episcopate in the same individual. St. James the Apostle, having been specially charged with the care of the Church of Jerusalem, is always considered as the first Bishop of Jerusalem. Similarly St. John, in the