CHAPTER 3 - ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 3, CONCERNING THE NAME OF BISHOP, ELDER AND PASTOR
CHAPTER 3 — ON MR. WOLFF’S CHAPTER 3, CONCERNING THE NAME OF BISHOP, ELDER AND PASTOR
Mr. Wolff supposes first that there is the ministry of a bishop, properly speaking; but he does not say if it is a general administration or a ministry of the word. Nevertheless, as the writer here uses this term in an absolute way, and as, in that case, according to him (page 13), the word “ministry always designates the ministry of the word,” it seems to me that it is in this latter sense what he calls the ministry of the bishop+ must be taken. But he lays down all this — without any proof — at the basis of his system. Mr. Wolff ends his chapter 2 by saying, “we shall first treat of the bishop”; without even mentioning where he finds, according to the word, that it is a ministry. In that case, this false basis once admitted, the only thing that remains, is to shew the identity of the word ‘bishop’ with other terms; this appears simple, and it would be hard to know why there is such haste to bring forward that point. But, in effect, the whole of Mr. Wolff’s system rests on this basis.
The apostle had said, Christ “gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.” According to Mr. Wolff himself (page 50), it is a classification of ministry, and he gives it with others in the place we quoted. But the bishop is to be found in neither of these classifications, and, for the system, God’s classification does not suffice; a classification must be made on purpose, striking out the pastor from the list of the word, and inserting the word ‘bishop’; and then, as a consequence, it must be shewn that pastor and bishop is the same thing. And wherefore all this? Because in Ephesians 4, the ministries are gifts given from on high, and one has to get rid of the pastor as being a gift given from on high.++ The pastor, then, is laid aside, and hidden behind the bishop, for whom, says Mr. Wolff, it is but another name — a function of his — and the bishop who is not in the list, the bishop who, according to the word, is not a gift, but a charge, is carefully and with great effort presented to view, to shew that the pastor is nothing else but the bishop.
+In effect, I do not believe that the ministry of the bishop is confined to the ministry of the word.
++The list of Ephesians 4 is treated as a mere classification of ministry (page 50).
[p. 227] Whence so many efforts to change what is simple? Christ ascended on high and gave gifts unto men: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Why avoid so carefully the plain testimony of the word? It is a bad sign; it is more than a bad sign. The revelation from God has authority; it is perfect, and it cannot be altered without introducing error. The pastor is given by the Holy Ghost in the list of gifts.+ One cannot make Ephesians 4: 11, to be a classification of ministries to the exclusion of gifts, erase the pastor and substitute the bishop in his stead, without betraying oneself as supporting a bad cause, based on something else than the word of God, a cause which cannot bear the testimony of the word, such as God has given it to us. I may be told that no allusion is made to Ephesians 4: 11 — they have made a list for themselves. First of all, this is not true; it is the list of Ephesians 4: 11, with the substitution of the bishop for the pastor. And if even it were a list made up for the occasion, how comes it that the lists and classifications which God gave do not suit our adversaries, and that they must have fresh ones? The reason is very simple; their system is not taken from the word of God.++ They wanted to get rid of the gifts, and the pastor is a gift given from on high. And why get rid of gifts? Because, “to pretend to the present existence of these gifts is to set up by the side of ministry a rival power which impedes it” (Wolff, page 69).
+I am well aware that the word translated “gifts” in Ephesians 4 differs from the one translated “gifts” in 1 Corinthians 12. In the tract, “On Ministry,” I have shewn the true difference. Farther on, I will speak of it in this one; but it matters not as to the change introduced here by Mr. Wolff.
++There is still further confusion with regard to this list: Mr. Wolff says, page 47, No. 5 and 6, that the name of teacher does not designate a particular charge, but a function of evangelists and bishops, and that (No. 5) the term “teacher” includes the two charges of evangelist and bishop. Thus, according to Mr. Wolff’s system, the list which God gave us in Ephesians 4 is altogether erroneous; bishop takes the place of pastor, this latter word, according to Mr. Wolff, page 15, being merely the ideal expression of what a good bishop should be, and the word teacher embracing the two, both evangelist and bishop, page 47, No. 6. It is shameful thus to treat the word of God!
[p. 228] Such is the sad part which the gifts of the Holy Ghost are made to play, according to that system.
But, one might say, in the days of the apostles there were, according to your system (page 77), gifts, and by the side of these gifts a ministry, entirely distinct, it is true, but which subsisted at the same time (page 69), which was neither destroyed by means of them, nor “compelled to throw itself into clerical despotism, to maintain its rank and dignity.”
This is an evident difficulty. Here is the way in which they seek to remove it. There was among these gifts (page 77) “the gift of discerning of spirits, which could judge of these gifts and assign to them their proper importance and place.” Where is all this to be found in the word? “The prophet had to be subject to this”; and it is added (page 74), “how much more the other gifts.” All this is an invention of the writer’s imagination.
The apostle, settling the order of service, says, “Let the prophets speak two or three,” he refers to prophets, “and let the others judge.” Not a word about him who had the discerning of spirits. The apostle laid down the rule for this, as for every other arrangement in the Church, and those who spoke acted according to those directions.
The idea of the writer is subversive of the apostolic authority. He who discerned the spirits did just what those very words express; he judged if it was by a demon or by the Spirit of truth that any one spoke.
Having based his system on a principle which is false, the consequence and the errors which flow from it are endless.
The writer tells us against that the only time the word ‘pastor’ is found in the New Testament, it presents itself as the ideal expression of what a good bishop should be. But this “only time” is very awkward for him; it is the passage we have quoted. Christ, having ascended on high, gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. This is what Christ gave. How this word ‘pastor’ is the ideal expression of what a good bishop should be, one cannot say; but the writer cannot deny that the pastorship connected with the doctorship is a ministry, unless a passage of the word of God is not to be received as evidence. As “in this enumeration of the charges of ministry there is no mention of the elder, or the bishop, nothing can prevent assigning the denomination to the bishop” (page 15). What a mode of reasoning! Because God has not named a charge in a list of gifts, one of these gifts must be that very charge!
[p. 229] The grand argument by which Mr. Wolff seeks to assimilate and confound the pastor given from on high (Ephesians 4: 11), with the charge of bishop, a charge unto which the apostle or his delegate can appoint, is, that it is said to the bishops of Ephesus, “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God,” Acts 20: 28.
That the bishop is exhorted to feed, that I do not deny; but if such a gift be useful in the charge of a bishop, it does not follow that all those who possessed it were in that charge, and still less than that charge was the same thing as the gift. I can exhort my clerk to write well and to count aright, and he must know how to do these things in order to be a clerk; but it does not follow that every writer and book-keeper is a clerk. That charge supposes confidence, which extends to many other things: the handling of money and goods, intercourse with buyers, etc. Thus a man may be a pastor and be lacking as to many things requisite in a bishop, and may never have been invested with this charge. A man may be lacking as regards authority for governing, in discernment, oversight, the gravity necessary to act upon thoughtless minds in the details of life; or a personal knowledge of souls; and at the same time he may be capable of feeding souls with very great success, without being invested with the charge of bishop. That gift, that of feeding, may, together with other qualities, fit him for the charge of bishop; but a charge with which one is invested is not a gift given by Christ ascended on high.
The falseness and the futility of this reasoning, which tends to justify the alteration they have introduced in the list which God gave us, are proved by a similar passage, John 21: 15-17, where it is said to Peter, “Feed my sheep” and “Feed my lambs.” Do they mean that, because of these exhortations of the Lord to Peter, apostle and bishop were the same thing? It is of no use saying that he called himself “an elder.” He does it in effect, as a touching testimony of affection and humility; but do they mean that apostle and bishop are the same thing? Well, if the conclusion is evidently false in this case, it is equally so in the other, which is perfectly similar. See again 1 Corinthians 9: 7, where Paul applies the word ‘feedeth’ to himself. He is never called an elder.
[p. 230] Moreover, Mr. Wolff is, in this respect, in contradiction with himself. He says (page 14), that “the names of bishop, elder, and pastor, refer to one and the same charge”; and, on the contrary, he says (page 15, 40), that “the function of pastor is connected principally with the episcopate”; and he gives as a proof of this that an apostle who was not a bishop calls himself a co-elder. This is very slight ground for denying that a thing called “gift” by the Holy Ghost is a different thing from a charge, of which the passage makes no mention. The last proof the writer gives, to establish the identity of pastor and bishop, consists in the denial that there is a particular ministry of pastor” (page 16), and saying that it is only the ministry of one who was, at the same time, pastor and teacher; and then he concludes that “the name of pastor is in this passage nothing but one among many functions, attributed to one and the same ministry.”
We must always remember that there is not a word of all this in the passage, which presents to us a list of gifts and not of charges, by Mr. Wolff’s own avowal, although he contradicts himself. I say, by Mr. Wolff’s own avowal, because he admits that the outward vocation was wanting in the prophet, who, consequently, had not, nor was, a charge. This is what I admit, that here, in Ephesians 4: 11, the Greek supposes doctorship and pastorship to be connected; but that is all, absolutely all; and without a single word being said about the attribution of a charge. I say that doctorship and pastorship are here connected, because such a phrase in no way supposes the union of these things in every case; it only shews that they are joined together in this case. Of this we find one of the strongest proofs in the expression, “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The Greek form is exactly the same; but if these things can never be connected but with the same person, then the Son is no longer God. This remark overthrows all the reasoning that Mr. Wolff gives here, as well as that of page 47 of his pamphlet. Here again is another example which applies directly to the point in question. The same Greek form is found in Ephesians 2: 20, where it is said, “Upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” The form is absolutely the same, and I can apply to it the phrase of the writer (page 47). “It is only through error or through ignorance of the language that people can have seen in apostle and prophet two different ministers.” But everyone knows quite well that they were different, though connected in certain cases. So that the writer’s reasoning as regards the pastors and teachers is false, and according to his expression (page 47), “it is only through error or through ignorance of the language that he could say all that he has said.” He has met with a rule laid down by Greek grammarians, which I admit as a general principle, a rule applied very extensively by Middleton and another English writer, Veysey, but particularly in the famous work of Middleton. But a little knowledge, people say, is a dangerous thing. Mr. Wolff has not had patience enough to examine carefully for himself the application of the rule, and he has applied it altogether wrongly.
The fact is, that Mr. Wolff’s system cannot hold good in the face of Ephesians 4. This chapter, for his system, is a classification of ministries; but to come to that one must introduce the bishop. On the other hand, to say nothing of apostles, prophets who are mentioned there are for him a gift, and an extraordinary gift too. So that he must lop off prophets, and then expunge pastors from this classification of ministries, and bring in bishops in their stead. When once this is done, teachers still remain, but they are not a ministry; so that this title too must be eliminated and looked upon as a qualification of pastors and evangelists. Here is the process. He easily disposes of apostles and prophets — they are ministries established by God alone. That is soon said. But as to gifts, this they cannot be — they are ministries. But, finally, he is not willing to consider them: in effect it would be rather inconvenient, since he is compelled elsewhere to make them to be gifts. As to pastors, it is an easy matter. Bishops are employed in feeding, therefore pastor and bishop are the same thing; we will put in bishop instead of pastor, and we have now two parts of the system of our day — evangelists, and bishops or pastors. But there still remain teachers in the list, and this is not a ministerial title now. Well, the gordian knot must be cut. It will be neither gift nor ministry, but a qualification of the evangelist or of the pastor. And thus is the revelation of God cut down to the measure of man’s will and of man’s sin; and man will be content with this.
[p. 232] In fine, according to Mr. Wolff, bishop was a charge and not a gift; and these are, according to him, two things essentially different: a gift cannot even be a charge, and the charge can exist without gift (page 67). But it is quite certain that pastor is a gift. In the passage, Ephesians 4: 11, the apostle speaks to us of gifts which Christ gave when He ascended on high. This evidently is a way of presenting gifts under the most important point of view. Christ, for the good of the Church and the perfecting of His saints, gave these gifts when He ascended up into glory unto His Father. There is no question here of any intervention of man to confer a charge; these are things from on high, which are to be exercised for the good of the Church. It is a question of the body of Christ, and of the joints of supply in that body — joints among which one may be more important than another, but which are all looked at under the same point of view. “Unto every one ... is given grace.” It is not a question here of a charge conferred by men, but of grace given according to the measure of the free gift of Christ.
Is it possible to be plainer or clearer on the nature of the thing itself?
Now Mr. Wolff admits that, in effect, there is no outward vocation for some; he cannot deny it. But does he not perceive that all here are absolutely in the same category and included in the same definition? And it is for this case alone that he chooses to substitute a charge. But the passage gives them all as being of the same nature, and in the same case, and in the same moral order. It is wresting the word in order to take out one of these “gifts” so as to stamp upon it another character and change its nature. The answer is “he gave”: it is a gift. Why do violence to the passage in order to make of the thing a charge under another name? Besides, these gifts, pastors and others, are placed in the body as joints of supply, according to the gift of Christ to each. This is never said of the bishop, who, in effect, was a charge, and not a gift, according to Mr. Wolff’s distinction.
The bishops (and not a bishop, for there were always several) were local charges; they only acted within the precincts of the particular church where they were found. The bishop was not a gift, nor a joint of supply in the body according to the measure of the gift of Christ, but a local charge, for which, among several other things, the capacity to feed was suitable.
[p. 233] The pastor was a gift, a grace; he was given from on high as a joint of supply in that body; he was to act according to the measure of the free gift of Christ, which was bestowed upon him.
The pastor is never presented as a charge established by men, although the bishops who were, according to God, established by men, with a special object of local oversight, may have enjoyed this gift and used it in their locality. These things are connected by one end, as the authority conferred upon the apostles by Christ was connected with what was given to them, and the gift rendered them competent to exercise that authority. For the apostle, although directly from God, was also a charge, and that, we may say, given by Christ as man, acting with authority in the government of the Church; and the charges of authority flowed from that.
The pastor is a gift in the body; the bishop, a charge in a particular church.
If I am asked why I believe that, I repeat, Because God has said it in as many words in the word, and He has done so in the plainest and clearest manner. So that one must alter the lists God gives us, suppress the fact that the passage (Ephesians 4: 11) is a list of gifts, and fall into the grossest contradictions+ about ministries, charges and gifts, to enable him to get out of it.
The apostle, by way of comparison, applies the word ‘feedeth’ to his own ministry also; 1 Corinthians 9: 7.
Hence, according to God, the bishop is a local charge established by men, doubtless, according to the direction of God, by the Holy Ghost (Acts 13: 23; Titus 1: 3); and the bishop must possess divers qualities enumerated in the word. There were several in each church.
+Mr. Wolff calls the “ministries” the functions which are found in Ephesians 4: 11, among others, prophecy; and he says that ministry is exercised without gifts. He affirms (page 70) that prophecy is a gift, and that it no longer exists because it is a gift. We have seen that this contradiction is very cleverly hid by the warning that, apostles and prophets being acknowledged as coming from God alone, he will say nothing about them.
[p. 234] The pastor, on the contrary, is a gift given by Christ when He ascended up on high. The pastor is placed as a joint of supply in the body of Christ. He is therefore responsible for the exercise of this function, as for a talent entrusted to him; Ephesians 4: 11. Woe to the pastor who does not feed!
The bishop may be called to feed and to teach also — as a quality of charge. Historically I do not doubt, that, as man has ever more and more eclipsed the action of the Holy Ghost in the Church, the gift has by degrees been lost in the charge, but this does not change anything in the word; and we live in times, where one must have recourse either to the word or to popery.
If any one would know the history of local pastors, here it is. At first (and that even till rather recent dates in certain countries) the presbyters or elders (for it is the same word) from the central town where they resided, visited the villages around, in order to perform the service and edify the faithful. Gradually the villages wished that one of the presbyters should settle in their midst. This took place; and thus a parish was formed. From the same source came the origin of patronage, or the right of appointing, in the middle ages. The lord of the place promised to endow the presbyter, if he came to reside near him in his village. The right to choose the presbyter was then granted to this lord; and, in imitation of the Jews, tithes were granted. Those who have observed the ways of a separated flock in a large town, will feel no difficulty in understanding how villages were served, and the natural progress in the establishment of parishes — the village flock wishing to have in their midst the appointed minister. Ecclesiastical laws, feudal laws, and other circumstances greatly modified all this, no doubt; but historically the progress is very evident. For us, this in nowise alters the truth which is in the word, and in nowise modifies the duty of acknowledging that which it contains and the ways of God which it declares, and of abandoning, if God gives us light, the tradition of men. The increasing corruption of that which attaches itself to those traditions demands imperatively that the faithful should be decided in this respect, if their desire is to be saved, or at least not be saved as through fire. It is sad preoccupation, to attach oneself to the hay and stubble men have built on the foundation, which is Christ.