CHAPTER II. The Officers of a Church. "Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." Philip.i. 1. The nature, design and rights of a christian church have already been made the subjects of inquiry. I propose now to speak of a church as organized with its proper officers. In other words, our next inquiry is, What are the officers of a church, and what are their duties and pow ers ? Look at the inscription of the epistle to the Philippians, which we have placed at the head of this chapter. It introduces to our notice the church at Philippi with its officers; and it shows us also Paul and Timothy, the one the author of the epistle, and the other his associate and friend, who joins with him in christian salutations to their Philippian brethren. The reader, who looks at the words of this inscription in reference to the subject now to be considered, may be disposed to ask, first, whether Paul and Timothy were officers of a church. To this question I answer, No. If you ask, What were they then? I answer again, One was an Apostle, the other an Evangelist; both were preachers of the gospel; both were minis ters, or as they expressed it, servants, of Jesus Christ; but neither as apostle and evangelist, nor as preachers and teachers of the christian religion, nor as the servants of the Savior, were they officers in any church. And I would make this proposition general. Neither an apostle, nor an evangelist, nor a preacher of the gospel, is, as such, an officer of any church. In explanation and proof of this assertion, I offer two remarks. 1. It is one of the privileges of a church to elect its own officers. This I trust has been made already sufficiently plain. But there is proof enough in the New Testament, that men might preach the gospel, might become evangelists, and even apostles without the votes of any church. 2. There were apostles, evangelists, and other preachers of the gospel, before there was any organized church of which they could be officers; nay before the form in which christian societies should be constituted, was determined. The mode in which Christ and his followers were associated during his ministry on earth, was not the model of a church. That little company was rather a family or a school, or both, than an ecclesiastical organization. The man of Nazareth appeared among his countrymen as a great and divine teacher of religious truth; and like other prophets and teachers, he had his retinue of fol lowers and immediate disciples who always accompanied him, and waited on him, and who formed one family of which he was the head. This was not a church; they all worshiped in the synagogues and in the temple, like other Jews; Jesus was the master and they were pupils in his family. In this family, Judas Iscariot was the steward who had the charge of their common purse, and provided the supplies for their common table. Out of this family, Christ selected twelve, who were to be the particular witnesses of his life, death, and resurrection, and whom he called apostles. Them he sent forth on one occasion, before his death, to perform a circuit through Judea and Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom. When they went on this business, of what churches were they officers, when as yet, not a church had ever been instituted? In what church-we might as well ask-was John the Baptist an officer ?—or Isaiah the prophet? So on another occasion, Christ sent out seventy of his followers on a similar errand. In what church were they officers? After the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, his apostles and other personal followers, while they waited at Jerusalem for the promised effusion of the Holy Spirit with his miraculous gifts, continued to live as before, in an association more like a family than like what was afterwards called a church. It was not till their numbers were increased by thousands, and the need of some organization began to be felt, that anything like the institution of a distinct and permanent religious society, appears to have been definitely contemplated. And then, nothing more was done than was necessary in that present exigency. Thus the whole constitution of the church at Jerusalem grew up by degrees, as one step after another was called for by a succession of circumstances altogether peculiar. When the family became a church-when the daily worship in the temple, and the daily lectures of the apostles to the multitudes which gathered around them with one accord in Solomon's porch, and the meetings in private houses for prayer and the breaking of bread, became the regular religious institutions of a completely organized christian society, we have no occasion, even if it were in our power, to determine. It is enough for our present purpose to know that there were apostles and evangelists, and other preachers of the gospel, before there were churches; and that, therefore, neither the preacher nor the evangelist, nor the apostle, as such, is necessarily an officer in any church. But you ask again, Had the apostles and evangelists, as such, no office? I reply, they had duties to perform, they had a ministry or service to fulfil, they had a gift which was in them by the laying on of the hands that conse crated them to the work of teaching; and if this is what you mean by office, they had an office, the office of apostles and preachers; still theirs you see was not an office in any church, but rather an office independent of the existence of all churches. Their duties were, to publish the gospel wherever they had an opportunity; to give suitable instructions to inquirers and to converts; to show to such as became christians, in what way, and under what organization, they might associate themselves for devotion and mutual benefit; and finally to see to it that others of proper qualifications were introduced into the same ministry with themselves. They were Christ's servants, his messengers, sent abroad to teach all nations; you may call their business an office if you will, but it was not an office which constituted any part of the organization of any, of the churches. You ask again, perhaps, Had these men no authority? I answer, yes, all of them had the authority of truth and reason-what they showed from the ancient scriptures, or from the words of Christ, recorded, recollected, or reported, or from argument in any way, to be the word of God, -that, every man belonging to any church or to no church, that, every society of men, christian, Jewish, Pagan, was bound to respect, believe, and obey accordingly. Some of them had the authority which belongs to acknowledg |