CHAPTER 9 - ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 9, ABOUT THE TWOFOLD VOCATION OF THE ELDER
CHAPTER 9 — ON MR. WOLFF’S CHAPTER 9, ABOUT THE TWOFOLD VOCATION OF THE ELDER
On the subject of the twofold vocation of the bishop, I find nothing whatever that is scriptural in Mr. Wolff’s system. What is called inward or immediate vocation is not to be found in the Bible in the case of the bishop. The Bible supposes that a person may desire to be a bishop, but that is all. Where that desire exists, not a word is said about an inward vocation as a quality requisite for the charge. If a young man desired to be a minister, according to the present system (and it would be very difficult to find the least analogy between that and the choosing of bishops in the New Testament), the first thing which an evangelical friend of the young man would ask him is, “Do you feel yourself called of God to the ministry?” Not a trace of such an idea is in the epistle to Timothy: “If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work,” and thereupon follow the requisite qualities, without a single word about inward vocation. It was a charge entrusted to persons who were qualified.
But the confusion is the natural consequence of the confusion which is made between the pastor and the bishop; it results from having denied all the gifts and excluded them from ministry, and from the will to maintain, at any cost, the existing system and the flesh which rests there.
A second remark presents itself here. Mr. Wolff says (page 36), “that it is God who gives, who sets the bishops in the Church; it is men, the ministers, who establish them.” But in the word of God the expression “given” is never used in reference to the bishop; never is it said that God, that Christ, gave bishops.+ Never is the word ‘set’ used as to the charge. The Holy Ghost had put certain persons in that charge. In Acts 20 it is nowise a question of an inward vocation, but of the simple fact that the Holy Ghost had placed them there; and Mr. Wolff himself acknowledges that a person is not set in a charge by an inward and immediate vocation. Hence it is not true that God sets bishops in the Church; but He sets persons in the charge of bishop in a flock.
+The expression in 1 Timothy 3: 1 is sufficient in itself alone to shew the difference that exists between the gift of pastor and the charge of bishop. If God gave a pastor, he who was such by the grace of God had not to desire that gift, that function; he had it. Neither was it a question of judging of the qualities of the individual, in order to know if he was fit for that place. Christ had already judged that, when He had bestowed on him the grace to be pastor. But as to the episcopate, a person desired a charge, a certain position in a church; and the person to whom that care was entrusted was to begin by examining if the one who desired it had the requisite qualities. Could this be applied to what is said in Ephesians 4? When Christ ascended, He gave pastors and teachers. If anyone desired a gift, he had to apply to the One who gave; and if anyone aspired to a charge, he was to subject himself to an examination, that it might be known if he possessed certain qualities required for that charge.
[p. 256] All that Mr. Wolff says on this subject is therefore altogether false from one end to the other; it is a theory or arrangement for sanctioning that which exists without any scriptural foundation — a theory, which, after all, is a thing quite different from the theory itself, which makes bishops of young students who have none of the qualities which God demands.
Mr. Wolff says that the word of God contains nothing against the Church’s choosing among those who have already been called to the ministry, or among those who are ready to be received. There is in such expressions a boldness which really demands something more than the brief remarks I can give here; it is sought to justify oneself by adding to the word of God systems and thoughts of which not one trace is found there. Where is there to be found in the word of God a single trace of choosing among those who are already called to the ministry — unless it be in the case of those who said, “I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos”?
The apostle or his delegates appointed certain persons having certain qualities to a certain charge: was the Church afterwards to choose among them, or even to choose others, leaving them aside? Is it not true that the apostle appointed such a person bishop in such a town? And how, if the Church took no active part in the vocation of the bishop, could it choose among those who were called? It is very convenient to say of any one that he is called to the ministry, because this is done now; but where is that to be found in the word? No one in that case was called to the ministry; but the bishop was established in a special charge.
[p. 257] In the case of the bishop, it was a question of a local charge; and Mr. Wolff admits that at that time there were ministries of apostles and of prophets, whose vocation was from God alone. Could the churches choose according to their will among the apostles and prophets? In all this portion of the pamphlet there reigns, in order to flatter that which exists, a contempt for the word of God, which one would do well to weigh before the Lord. God will judge.
When the writer speaks of the candidate for ministry, what does it mean? Was a person candidate for the function of apostle or prophet? Was a person then chosen by such or such a church? For these were ministries. And when the apostle chose and established bishops in each town, even if there were men who desired that charge, were these churches (one knows not where) choosing amidst a company of young ministers the one who suited them? It is wrong, very wrong, thus to treat the word of God.
Finally, whether one takes ministry as being the exercise of a gift, as was the case with the apostles or prophets (for it is absurd after all to pretend to say that the prophet exercised a ministry without gift); or looks upon it as a charge, as was the case with the bishops established by the apostle, by Timothy, or by Titus; the idea of choosing among candidates or among those called to the ministry, is equally foreign to the word, excluded from the word. And the idea that a young candidate or an ordained minister should go and make himself heard, that the population of a place may choose him, is certainly not to be found in the word of God.
[p. 258] To insist on the imposition of hands as to the bishop (a thing which is not said in the word), then cleverly to add (page 38, 2�), “Thus he who will be pastor without receiving the imposition of hands, has not really received any charge; his ministry ought not to be received by any church” — this is nothing but a conjuror’s trick. For after all the pastor is not named anywhere except in a list of gifts. Such is the fact; and not a word of what is said of the bishop and of his charge is applied to him in the word.
As for the testimony drawn from Acts 13 (page 38, 3�) we have already found the reasoning of the writer to be entirely false. Thus all the high words he addressed to the brethren at the close of the paragraph are not worth much.+ The man who thinks that Paul and Barnabas received the collation of the charge of simple evangelists from prophets and teachers at Antioch, and who makes this the basis of his reproof, needs in effect to cry out very loud in order to make himself heard.
That in the present system “ministry is debased, so as only to see in it an altogether human order of things,” this I acknowledge. Has one any trouble in recognizing the picture we find in page 41?++ Where did Mr. Wolff find the original of that portrait? Will he have us to remain in a system which thus degrades ministry?
+“When the divine vocation in ministry is lost sight of,” says Mr. Wolff, “then one sees, as in some churches in our day, the imposition of hands conferred upon those who have no intention of devoting themselves to the service of the Church, or sought after by candidates without any certainty of ever having a charge to fill. To confer such an imposition of hands, or even to seek after it, is a monstrosity. It is to disown the inward vocation and the rights of God; it is making light of the most holy institutions; it is to debase ministry, so as only to see in it an altogether human state of things.”
++“Is it not scandalous,” says Mr. Wolff, “to see in the midst of Christians some would-be strong minds resisting, freeing themselves from, duties recognised by the Church at all times, and rebelling against an institution to which the Holy Ghost Himself consented to subject Himself?”