CHAPTER 20 - ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 20, WHERE HE SEEKS TO JUSTIFY CLERICAL USURPATION

CHAPTER 20 — ON MR. WOLFF’S CHAPTER 20, WHERE HE SEEKS TO JUSTIFY CLERICAL USURPATION

As to that clerical usurpation of which Mr. Wolff speaks, I have not much to say about it. When one man will be minister, and demands that every other labourer should be subject to him; when he has been named according to a system which is not of God, when he demands from the other labourers, in the same field, a subjection which the apostles did not demand, and when he does this because an authority which God does not own as regards the affairs of His Church, has appointed and established him, then there is clerical usurpation. Besides, I deny that the minister is called in Scripture, elder, bishop, pastor, leader; and I ask for a passage which shews the contrary. Mr. Wolff produces none.

^[p. 311] It is not honest to quote Ignatius; because, if Mr. Wolff has read him, he must know that Ignatius uses the word ‘bishop’ in quite a different sense, and says that one ought to obey the bishop as if it were obeying God; the elders, as if it were Christ; and the deacons, as if it were the college of apostles.

I acknowledge, that in general, things ought to be done under the direction of those who lead, in order that everything may go on in unity and for the good of all.