CHAPTER 4 - ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 4, CONCERNING THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS ON THE VOCATION OF THE BISHOP

CHAPTER 4 — ON MR. WOLFF’S CHAPTER 4, CONCERNING THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS ON THE VOCATION OF THE BISHOP

In all the rest of the pamphlet we must expect to find the bishop and the pastor confounded; this will create much difficulty; but we will try to get out of it.

“The bishop,” says Mr. Wolff, “can only, it is evident, receive his vocation from God, or from man, or from both together. Hence three different systems.”

“In the first system,” says Mr. Wolff, “the pastor holds his ministry from God alone; men are not to come in, in any way; this is the system of the Quakers, of the Irvingites, and of those called Plymouth Brethren.”

All this is false. Firstly, the Quakers have elders who form a separate class, and who adjoin to themselves such or such other grave person to be elder with them, but with the consent of the assembly. Those who speak or feed may, or may not, be elders. Even their ministers (for the Quakers also distinguish between elders and ministers) are recognized by the elders after a certain time for the probation of their gifts, and they always remain subject to the judgment of the elders.

Secondly, the Irvingites have an angel, a sort of head pastor, and six elders besides, when the rules are followed. All are established by men (namely, their apostles), and they hold to that like papists.

Thirdly, those whom the writer calls Plymouth Brethren (as far as I can dare to speak for them) believe that, as the bishop was established by the apostles, he cannot be established in our day with the same formal authority. They leave the pastor where God placed him, that is, as a gift given by Christ when He ascended up on high and received gifts for men.

In the second system, says Mr. Wolff, the bishop holds his ministry from men alone, and he attributes this system to Limborch and Neander. As to Limborch I know nothing of him. As to Neander, except the direct appointment by men, he is just what people call a Plymouthian, and therefore Mr. Wolff says of him (page 9): “a new theory, original, wholly destitute of proof.” In the third system, which Mr. Wolff calls mixed, “the bishop receives his charge by a twofold vocation from God and men.”

As regard this point, or this system, we must always bear in mind that the ecclesiastical system of the Reformed Church of France, etc., distinguishes between the bishop or overseer, and the pastor, so that what the writer says is not at all the system of Calvin — a system based on this, that the ordinary gift of pastor, which is distinct from the bishop, still subsists. According to Calvin, for the Church to exist, it is absolutely necessary there should be gifts now. And Mr. Wolff, on the contrary, says (page 78), “If there are gifts at the present time, unless they are all there, ministry cannot be maintained in the Church.”

^[p. 236] He goes still farther. This doctrine of Calvin,⁺ he says, “is one of the principal sores of the Church; every church where it may be received will become only a volcano” (page 70). If a minister believes in gifts, Mr. Wolff advises him to resign his charge. “It can no longer be allowed now for a minister to remain uncertain on this point.”

Finally, after having destroyed all the scriptural bases of the system of Calvin, in his desire to confound those who in their weakness rest upon God and the word, the writer goes on to establish this last system, which is his own. But what animosity of opposition does not this pamphlet manifest. To get rid of the activity of the brethren, their adversaries think proper even to undermine all their own house. As blind as Samson, without having his strength, they bring down the house upon their own heads, without touching those they wish to destroy. These, taught by the word as to the ruin which is coming, are already gone out of it.