CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
At Geneva it was needful, either to induce certain brethren to join the new Free Church founded under the name of the Evangelical Church of++ Geneva, or else to throw discredit on their principles, and thus in one way or another to destroy the testimony rendered to the truth. It may be that the testimony had been borne in much weakness and accompanied by faults and shortcomings in every respect.
+ This is what the author of the tract “Are Elders to be established?” has loudly declared and professed before a great number of witnesses, in order to take advantage of that point of departure in the arguments by which he attacked, not so much the scriptural principles of the brethren present at the conference, as the writings published to explain and support them.
++Note to translation. For a long while they would not say the Evangelical Church of Geneva, but at Geneva, but I think (if my memory serves me) they adopted it afterwards.
[p. 185] It is a thing which the brethren who bore the testimony would not deny. They would confess it all before God and before man. But the testimony was there. The humbler, they who bore it, kept themselves, the better they would find themselves for it.
The details of the steps taken, of the correspondence, and of the conferences which took place, would bring no great profit to the reader. What concerns Christians is the path they have to follow in order to glorify God.+
The question is a very serious one. It is admitted, that, as regards its visible unity, the Church is in ruins. They profess that the clergy, with whom this visible unity has rested for sixteen centuries, is not according to God. But it is pretended that, putting the clergy aside, we can re-establish that which existed in the days of the apostles, such as the apostles themselves had established it.
It is, it must be allowed, a pretension which has a very wide bearing, and we should compromise ourselves deeply in giving way to it and submitting to those who put it forth, if after all it is a pretension unauthorized by God.
Are the Christians of Geneva in a position to re-establish the organization of the Church in the primitive state in which the apostles left it, and which state, by the consent of all, exists no longer?
+Were it otherwise, I should certainly never have taken up the pen. I have always found that, as regards attacks made on me, the best course was to let them go on and pursue my own work. But, here the question of the Free Church and of the establishment of elders was put forward, with the accusation that brethren denied the authority of the word. These questions preoccupy their minds. In answering them, I shall confine myself to that which is necessary to shew that the accusation is unfounded. Beyond the general question I should never have answered it. Nevertheless, the reader will find the answer consigned to a note, an answer, the contents of which have only to do with the subject in controversy.
[p. 186] Yet, I do not deny, since they have put forward this pretension, it is a solemn thing to reject it, if in truth the thing could be done. We must look deeper into it than the individuals. Even if those who have undertaken it are not capable of it; if the thing be possible; if it is according to the mind of God, one should be very cautious of raising any obstacle to it and of discouraging those who seek to realize it. One thought, which, moreover, will act with power on a conscientious soul, on a soul penetrated with love for the Church, is the dread of limiting the energy of the love of God towards His Church. It is the reproach of the Spirit of God to Israel: “They limited the Holy One of Israel.” It is clear that in itself, putting aside every other consideration, and all the recognition of the ways and judgments of God, it would be a thing infinitely precious to see the Church shine forth in all her pristine beauty, in the unity and in the ensemble which it had at the beginning. For my part, I have so little faith, that I always fear to cast a doubt on the path of him who seems to have more. It is certain, at least I am fully convinced of it, that we can and ought to realize infinitely more than we have done of that primitive state. Insomuch that I am far from disposed to raise obstacles to the realization of many things which do not exist, provided that the realization proceeds from faith, and from the Spirit of God.
But here we have to do with positive pretension, and it is that we have to answer.
Yet in this respect I find myself in a rather peculiar position. The ink is barely dry of my answer to an attack coming from the same side,+ in which we were accused of making a code of law out of the gospel, and in which we were opposed, by insisting upon the falsity of the principle which considers, as now binding on us, the primitive rules of the apostles. The word of God is no law in like matters, say they, while blaming us.
My answer to these reproaches maintained in all respects the whole authority of the word, all the while that I confess the humbling incapacity in which the Church finds itself to recover certain things which it has lost.
+I do not say the same person. Look, in the paper called “A Glance at Various Ecclesiastical Principles,” etc., at that which relates to the attacks of the Journal “La Reformation.” In the blame which it has lately cast on the “Glance,” etc., this journal returns to the charge in these words: “Our answer is easy. Shew us the scripture itself which claims to be an ecclesiastical code, and attributes a universal and binding value to the words which may be contained in it on this subject. Shew us this and we yield. but wherefore give it a character to which it has no pretence?”
[p. 187] Is it not then a rather surprising thing to see those who cried down, in the ears of everybody who was disposed to listen, the system of Gospel-code — to see them accuse us at this time of disobedience and even of blasphemy (for to such an extent have they gone) because we do not submit to them, when they insist on the same rules, adding thereto the pretension of being in a state to re-establish them in full vigour?
If we had only to do with controversy, it would be enough to ask them to answer themselves. And why, when, in appearance at least, it is but a simple question of your maintaining your ground, in the midst of a general movement, in a place of authority which is escaping you — why would you wish to impose on us that chapter of what you call with contempt the Gospel-code, and impose that one on us, whilst cancelling all the rest as being no rule, and whilst rejecting, in principle, the continuance of the obligation to that which is found there, whilst denying even the existence of that binding character beyond the occasion itself, which gave rise to the apostolic direction? You should at least have left to the Christian public time to forget that which you alleged six months since, and which you were repeating not six weeks ago.
But the matter is too serious to be treated thus, for the interests of the Church of God are called in question. It is a question of making oneself certain of the truth and of walking in it by the power of the precious grace of God. It is not enough to point out the errors of those who are opposed to it a sad employment of one’s time, fruitless to oneself and too often to them also.
After having lost its normal position and its primitive rules, is the Church capable, when it has sinned thus, of re-entering as of right into the old position, and of re-establishing all that which the rules, long ago laid aside, had established, without taking count either of its fall or of the ruin resulting therefrom?+
+We shall see that it is to this question that the general views of the tract of our brother, M. Foulquier, apply. He maintains that God does not re-establish the primitive state of an order of things, when it has fallen to pieces in the hands of man. We will examine further on the answer of the anonymous author of the tract, “Are we to establish Elders?” whom, for the sake of brevity, we will designate as “The anonymous author.”
[p. 188] Another aspect under which the right to establish an ecclesiastical system has been viewed, is that which we have just pointed out, namely, that the word is of no authority in the case,+ and that we must take our stand boldly on the platform of human order and evangelical liberty.
Having strongly contended in the “Glance,” etc., for the full and entire authority of the word, I add nothing here on that point.
It is with the first point that we have to do.
But before entering on the subject, I take the liberty of laying before the eyes of the reader some facts relative to Geneva, because these facts throw light on the question of the establishment of elders, and on the position of the brethren of “L’ile”++ with regard to these matters.