By the Rev. J. P. MACQUEEN.
AS surely as there was a Divine pattern given to Moses on the Mount, which was to be the unequivocal directory of the Church till the end of the Old Testament dispensation, so the primitive apostolic Church is the divinely-ordained pattern for the New Testament Church till the end of time. To this Scriptural model every denomination, claiming to be Christian, must be conformed, unless its practice is to belie its profession. Regarding the apostolic method of church government, it does not require a profound acquaintance with the New Testament Scriptures to convince an impartial reader, that it was pre-eminently democratic, in the best sense of the term. When there arose, for
instance, a dispute between the disciples as to which of them should be the greatest—an early incipient manifestation of the inherent popery in fallen human nature—they were rebuked by their Divine Master, who reminded them that while the heathen kings of the Gentiles exercised lordship over them, it was not to be so among them. They were not to lord it over God’s heritage, but to serve. “One,” they were told, “is your Master and all ye are brethren.” The Pauline pastoral epistles to Timothy and Titus conform to and confirm this Divine rule, where it is revealed that the same exhortations were addressed to the elder, presbyter, or bishop alike, manifesting that there was no gradation of rank or superiority of status between them, but that these were interchangeable terms.
Even so ardent an advocate and upholder of diocesan Episcopalian church government as the late Rev. Professor Rawson Lumby of Cambridge had to confess, at the end of his impartial scholarly ecclesiastical researches, that “there is not a vestige of foundation for episcopal church government in the early apostolic church.” Yet in the very teeth of New Testament teaching it would be considered a breach of etiquette were one to address a diocesan or prelatic bishop as other than “My Lord Bishop.” It is, therefore, clearly evident that gradation of rank among Christian pastors is un-Scriptural and the fruit of carnal ambition, pride, and vanity. Its earthly consummation is the papal pontifical throne, on which the Pope, like Diotrophes before him, must have the pre-eminence, till it culminates in the blasphemy of claiming, for a simple worm of the dust, exclusively Divine prerogatives. Fallen man’s chief end for himself is to be so great and distinguished as to be without a rival.
The comparatively recent practice in the so-called Church of Scotland, and other so-called Presbyterian Churches, of labelling Moderators, during their term of office “Right Reverend” and ex-Moderators “Very Reverend,” marks a half-way house to Episcopalianism, and is but the incipient ambitious stepping-stone to the bishop’s crosier. Carnal ambition, however, will not rest satisfied long with merely the bishop’s crosier, but it must needs
aspire to the papal tiara. We sincerely believe that when better and more spiritual days dawn in the professing Christian Church men of the most brilliant intellectual calibre and of the highest academic attainments and scholarship in the ministry, will not regard it as self-sacrifice and self-denial to be content with the same simple title and ecclesiastical status as their more mediocre brethren, whether or not it will be universally agreed that that title should be “reverend,” “pastor,” or simply “mister.” Such prefixes or suffixes as “Professor” and “Doctor of Divinity” will vanish as being seen to be inconsistent with the spiritual humility then prevailing, and enjoined by the Word of God.
That ecclesiastical distinction or gradation of rank in the Christian ministry should be based on either intellectual ability or academic and scholarly attainments is not only un-Scriptural, but wrong in the light of experience and the history of the professing Christian Church and its ministry themselves. How often, for instance, has it occurred, in testing times, relative to Scriptural doctrinal positions, that sincere and well-meaning brilliant and scholarly ministers advocated a course of action and assumed an attitude which subsequent events proved egregiously wrong, and even disastrous for the Christian Church, while their more spiritually discerning, if very mediocre, brethren’s firm uncompromising opposition was historically and Scripturally vindicated? In the Christian Church, both as regards its ministers and lay office-bearers and members, supernatural gracious spiritual discernment is of infinitely greater worth and value, even in conjunction with intellectual mediocrity and slender educational attainments, than the most capable intellectual calibre and highest scholarly attainments, accompanied by little or no spiritual discernment. This is a point that needs special emphasis in these days, when in many ecclesiastical quarters, claiming orthodoxy, there is evidence of sadly misplaced emphasis, to the detriment of the spiritual life of the professing Church.
This is not, in the least degree, minimising the importance of a high standard of educational attainments in the Christian ministry, but a Scriptural insistence upon the proper emphasis.
A balanced attitude relative to these important points may be maintained if we consider, and keep in mind, how a worthy Scottish Highland divine on the one hand, and a renowned English divine on the other, expressed their respective views on the subject. Dr. Kennedy of Dingwall, for instance, said, “while I yield to none in insistence on the high standard of literary attainments hitherto required, in Scotland, of candidates for the sacred office of the ministry, there is one qualification without which all other qualifications are worse than useless—supernatural grace.” When King Charles II. expressed to Dr. Owen his amazement that a man of his learning would go to hear an illiterate tinker (John Bunyan) prate, the learned Oxford theologian replied: “May it please your Majesty—Give me the illiterate tinker’s ability to preach, and I will gladly relinquish all my learning.” That great experimental preacher and pious scholarly intellectualist, Rev. J. C. Philpot, M.A., declared that five minutes under the supernatural tuition of the Holy Ghost would make one a better Christian and theologian than a life-time spent in a University or theological college.
* The foregoing statements manifest the balanced golden mean, which is in perfect accord with apostolic practice and simplicity, where we find an intellectually-brilliant genius of high academic attainments in the person of the Apostle Paul, so far from claiming any lordship or ecclesiastical distinction of rank above his fellow-apostles and servants of Christ, though they were practically illiterate Galilean fishermen, on the contrary, regarding himself as less than them, and scarcely worthy to be called an apostle.
Presbyterian Church government’s insistence upon equality of status among the brethren in the ministry is the Scriptural golden mean between all forms of carnal Episcopalian ecclesiastical gradation of rank and the disorderly extreme, on the other hand, prevailing, in this connection, among Plymouth Brethren.
The fact that the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland represents that Scriptural golden mean to-day as does no other denomination in nominal Christendom known to us, ought to have, not an arrogantly haughty, but a genuinely humbling effect upon
us. Who are we that we should be thus privileged with such tokens of Divine favour as a denomination? We are all hell-deserving sinners who have forfeited all claim to Divine love, so that the maintenance of a faithful Scriptural testimony in our midst is the fruit of undeserved sovereign mercy. May we be kept all our days from the criminal folly of self-satisfied complacency on the ground of mere orthodoxy, but may it be our earnest persevering desire and constant sincere prayer that we shall, individually and denominationally, bring forth spiritual fruit, by the free grace of God, in some degree commensurate with our great, precious and undeserved privileges.
There are many reasons why the foregoing matters should be emphasised, but one reason especially should be mentioned. In the history of our own church we believe it could be shown that some ministers and others left us, for less pure and less Scriptural denominations, for no other reason than that there was no prospect of their brilliant intellects and academic attainments ever being rewarded with such titles as “Professor” and “Doctor of Divinity,” Whatever plausible excuse, by way of back-door exit, they may have manufactured, not even scrupling to plead a tender conscience as a scape-goat, it will be generally admitted by all genuine spiritually-minded Free Presbyterians that they sold their precious birthright, in this connection, for a mess of vainglorious pottage—the carnal honour that comes from mere man, as distinguished from the unspeakably glorious honour that comes from God only, at the end of the day:—”Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Matthew, xxv., verse 21.