ordain a man whom he regarded as unfit to serve? or would the congregation, on the other, appoint a man whom their Apostlepastor disapproved? Both Apostle and people, we may reasonably believe, must approve-very much as in the case of the missionary or evangelist and his newly converted little congregation in the present day.

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(2) But all church officers were acknowledged as of Divine appointment. "God hath set some in the Church, first Apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues.' "Helps" and "governments" as well as "gifts of healing" or "prophets" or even "Apostles," let us observe, were "set in the Church" by the hand of God. "The flock in the which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops," was Paul's word to the Ephesian elders.

How was this shown? By the very bestowment of the gracious gifts necessary to fit men, this or that one, for the office. These charisms, each determining its appropriate spiritual function, bore immediately from God himself the authority for their exercise. "Having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy; or ministry, let us give ourselves to our ministry; or he that teacheth, to his teaching; he that ruleth with diligence.' Having gifts-such is the Apostle's exhortation-let us use them, and so prophesy, minister, teach, rule.

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Many things do not wait to be "authorized." The light of the sun asks no man's permission to shine: enough that the Father of lights has kindled it. The eye must see, the tongue must speak, the hands must labor, because it is for this they were made. Similarly the spiritual gifts of God must be used at every opportunity by the men and women to whom, as stewards

2Acts xx. 28.

Rom. xii. 6, 7.

11 Cor. xii. 28. 'Restrictions, indeed, were placed upon the speaking of women in the congregation (1 Cor. xiv. 35; 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12). Such restrictions were needful in that age; and in spirit, though not in letter, they are applicable to all ages. Cf. similar restrictions upon the disuse of the veil (1 Cor. xi. 4-15). It is not to be inferred, however, that women were forbidden to use

of his manifold grace, they are intrusted. The attitude of the apostolic churches toward them was that of recognition, not of original authorization.1

Was the government, then, democratic? It may be so described, but very inadequately. In the true and fuller sense, it was charismatic, and hence theocratic. Did the officers represent the people? As we have seen, yes; but more immediately and truly they represented the immanent Christ, the Spirit of truth in the congregation. Was it the prophetic teacher's word that was looked to for guidance and law? It was indeed the word of God through the prophetic teacher.

Hence it is the gift and its exercise rather than the office or the officer, upon which apostolic emphasis is laid. In the great passage just now quoted the second time from 1 Corinthians, officers and gifts are coördinated: side by side with "Apostles," "prophets," "teachers," are "miracles" (not miracle-workers), "gifts of healing" (not healers), "helps" (not helpers), "governments" (not governors), "divers kinds of tongues" (not speakers with tongues). Why this coördination of officers and gifts? The simplest explanation is that the gift of "miracles" and those that follow in this enumeration had not given rise, like the gifts of apostleship, prophecy, and teaching, to anything like distinct offices or officers. Because of the irregularity and infrequency of their exercise by any one person, or because they

the prophetic gift under all circumstances in the apostolic churches. In fact, it is plainly shown that they did use it (Acts ii. 17; xxi. 8, 9; 1 Cor. xi. 5, 13).

"The Church was not to develop her ministry from below, but to receive it from above by apostolic authorization." (Gore, "The Church and the Ministry," p. 248.) Would it not be a truer confession of faith that the Church was "to receive her ministry from above by" Divine vocation, and to have wisdom to recognize it when given?

"It seems hard for the advocate of apostolic succession to understand that 'from above' is from the Spirit of God, and that the Spirit may use any humble instrument to effect his call. A John may baptize a Jesus; an Ananias may lay hands on a Paul, and unknown prophets ordain the first Christian missionary apostle, at Antioch." (Dulles, "The True Church," p.

were not exercised in the congregation but privately, or perhaps because of their subordinate spiritual importance, they remained as "gifts" only, and were spoken of accordingly. But however this may have been, in all cases-that of prophesying as well as that of healing, that of teaching as well as that of speaking with tongues-it is the gift rather than the office or the officer that is significant. Hence the immediately following exhortation: "Desire earnestly the greater gifts." Not the greater offices or positions, but the qualifications for them. To receive and exercise the charisms of the Holy Spirit—that was all.

No, not all; there was something more, and incomparably better. The qualifying gifts were themselves to be qualified by the heart of love. Here is the "still more excellent way," the innermost secret of spiritual power. Apart from this, even the tongues of angels would be discordant and the martyr's death a vanity. Gifts which, exercised for self-gratification, excite confusion and wrangling in the house of God, when thrilled through with the spirit of love make for unity and strength. Gifts may scatter and destroy-the brethren at Corinth, falling apart into factions, were gifted; "love buildeth up.'

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It is in the twelfth and fourteenth chapters of Paul's First Epistle to these Christian brethren that instructions are given for the regulation of the use of gifts. And the intermediate chapter, the thirteenth-what of that? That, as we all know, is in praise of love. The order of topics is significant--a discourse on gifts with the hymn of love singing itself forth in the midst of it. Which would seem to say that at the very heart of all gifts is that which is incalculably more than any gift, the root and crown of the Church's life, the all-fulfilling grace of Christlike love.

(3) But the combination of gifts and love in the spiritual life will result, as already suggested, in service. Is this, then, one element in the relationship of officers and people in the Christian congregation? It is the chief. Let it be lost, and that relation

ship will be utterly emptied of meaning. Office is ministry. Otherwise it has no reason or right to be. As well suppose the "governor" of an engine to be put in position, as a regulator, for its own sake and not for the sake of the whole body of machinery and its output, as to suppose a governor of people to be elected for his own sake.

The principle is not confined to organized Christianity. It is universally applicable.

In point of fact-and the fact is worthy of more than this parenthetic remark-the same thing is true also of "representation" and of "Divine appointment." Stripped of what is local and temporary and of what is distinctively Christian, the government of the earliest Christian churches illustrates the essential principles of all government, civil or ecclesiastical. In proportion as any society approximates an ideal perfection, the relation of officers to people will be that of representation, Divine appointment, and service.

When, therefore, the civil office-holder acts from any motive inconsistent with the welfare of the people, he is doing no less culpable a deed than to pervert the ends of a divine institution. Is he one of those, for example, whom Jesus describes when he says, "Ye know that they who are accounted [or supposed] to rule over the Gentiles, lord it over them"-tyrannize, instead of ruling? It is a case of unfaithfulness to the God of men and of nations. In Church and State alike, the true ruler is father and friend, the servant of all. It is the very law of Christ that is personalized in the prophet's vision of kingship: "And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."" For this law of love makes no exception of the seats of official power. It includes the world from hovel to throne.

But subtle as the action of any physical poison is the process by which even the eager servant of the Church may be corrupted

'Isa. xxxii. 2.

into the self-centered office-holder. He may have begun as a very Stephanas, setting himself, with his household, to minister to others,

More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise,

and for that very reason raised by his brethren to some service of rulership. But now the joy of self-sacrificing service is departing from his life, and he seems to know it not. He is yielding to the charms of prominence and position in the house of God itself. And the church might say, like a neglected friend, "He no longer cares for me;" the meaning of which complaint is: "He no longer loves me." To love is to "care for."

"As the light of the morning when the sun riseth" is the New Testament teaching of this law of unselfish service in office and rulership in the Church. One great word of the Divine Founder will suffice for illustration. He was on his way to the Cross. Yet the Twelve, who accompanied him, had been disputing among themselves by the way as to "who should be the greatest." They seem indeed to have felt somewhat the shame of it; for when asked concerning the question in dispute, they had nothing to say. Then the Master, who knew all the meaning of their silence, sat down as a teacher, called them to him, and said, "If any man would be first, he shall be last of all, and minister of all;" and taking a little child in his arms, he taught them: "Whosoever shall receive one of such little children in my name, receiveth me. What cares the little child for honors and authority and worldly "greatness?" The Master's own heart was the child-heart, and his hand the hand of a "minister." He would have it be so, likewise, with all those who are called by his name, even unto the end of the world. In the kingdom of heaven greatness is childlikeness and service.

2

The true process of office-making, then, is unmistakable in the New Testament. It is a divine order. First the spiritual