permanence is sufficiently evident, to throw the burden of proof upon them that deny it. For if the gospel system was designed to be a permanent gift; if the Holy Scriptures were given not to our age but to every age; if the Sacraments were meant to be a permanent institution; nay, if the Church of God itself was designed to be permanent, withstanding all shocks, outliving all revolution and change, so it is a necessary inference, that the ministry, so instrumental in the work of the Church, should also be permanent. The preaching of the gospel, the evident duty of every age, and the administration of the Sacraments limited to no century or country, both demand that the Christian ministry should also be handed down from age to age. So that were there no intimation on the subject, in the letter of the ministerial commission, we should yet take it for granted, as a matter of course, that the ministry was a permanent gift to the Church. Well might St. Paul ask, "How shall they hear without a preacher?" Rom. x. 14. If any, therefore, will doubt, whether the ministry which Christ planted was designed to be handed down from age to age, let them be called upon to show why the Bible, and the Sacraments, and the Church itself, are not, equally with the ministry, confined to apostolic times.

2. But we have more direct proof upon this subject. The very letter of the commission itself under which the Apostles went forth in the work

of the ministry, asserts that that ministry should not cease till the end of time. For our Saviour said, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." But how "with them always?" Not personally, for their earthly career was soon to be cut short by death-but with them, in being with the ministry which he had constituted, and in which they were now to labor, and with all who should also share the labors and duties of that ministry till the end of time.

An eminent Presbyterian clergyman thus states the argument from this commission:

"Our Lord Jesus Christ delivered their commission to his Apostles, in terms which necessarily imply a perpetual and regular successive ministry. 'Go ye and teach all nations,' &c. That this command and promise, though immediately addressed, were not limited to the Apostles, is so obvious, as almost to shame an argument. But since we are sometimes required to prove that two and two make four, we remark:-First, that as the command is to teach all nations, it must spread as far and last as long as nations shall be found, &c. Secondly, that as the Apostles were to 'put off their tabernacles,' the command could not possibly be fulfilled by them. It runs parallel with the existence of nations. It must therefore be executed by others in every age, &c. Thirdly, that the promise, 'I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,' cannot, without palpable absurdity, be restricted to the persons, or to the days of the Apostles," &c.-See Rev. Dr. Mason's "Church of God."

And another distinguished divine of the same order says:

"The ambassador of Christ does not receive his official power from the men of the world, .... nor even from professing Christians in the Church, but from Jesus Christ himself..... Before he can be their pastor in particular, he must have received the ministerial office according to the established order, from those who already possess it themselves..... And we found the claim to this ministerial succession,.... not on any historical documents of man's invention, for none such are to be trusted, but directly on the promise of Jesus Christ, appended to the ministerial commission, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." "-Dr. McLeod's Ordination Sermon. 1 Cor. v. 20.

3. That Apostolic ministry, as a matter of fact, has been perpetuated from their times to the present day. After our Saviour's ascension, the Apostles proceeded to add to their own number. Matthias was numbered with the eleven Apostles. Acts i. 26. And others also are recorded by the inspired penmen, as belonging to the same rank and office as Barnabas and Paul. While the utmost care was taken by the Apostles, that the ministry which they had received should be perpetuated in the Church.

In the language of Pres. Stiles, a Congregationalist:

"The ministry is not of men but of Christ. The Christian priesthood, as well as that of Moses, was from heaven, and this not only in their first institu

*

tion, but in their subsequent transmission..... This succession has thus actually taken place in the Christian Church in general, from the Apostolic age to this day."—Ordination Sermon, N. L., p. 5. As one of our own Bishops says:

"I know not that the man, or the herb, is any the less a man or an herb, or any the less descended from the miraculous beginnings of the creation, because the laws of growth were but ordinary, and the intermediate agency of production was but human. And so, I know not that a minister of the gospel is any the less a successor of the first Apostles, because, instead of receiving his authority, like them, immediately from Christ, it has come to him by the intermediate communication of a chain fastened at its beginning, upon the throne of God, and preserved as inviolate as the line of the descent of Adam, or the succession of seed-time and har vest, of day and night, of summer and winter."*Bp. McIlvaine's Sermon, Cons. Bp. Polk, p. 17.

It has been the object of the present chapter to show that the ministry of Christ is his own special institution. From the nature of the case, from the letter of the ministerial commission, from the recorded statements of the inspired writers, and we may add, from the opinion of the great mass of Christendom, we come to the conclusion that the Christian ministry is a Divine institution. As such, we bring the subject before the candid reader. If, in respect to a worldly estate, he would be careful

• The reader will find this subject beautifully and most forcicibly illustrated in the Sermon from which an extract is here made.

that every provision of the law was complied with, we put it to his conscience if he will be less solicitous, when the ambassador offers, in Christ's name, not thrones, and dominions, and principalities and powers of earth, but what is infinitely more valuable than all these, an immortal crown of glory in the Heavens.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY EXISTING IN THREE ORDERS-THE SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENT.

HAVING shown that the Christian ministry was a positive institution of Christ, we now proceed to point out the manner in which that ministry was constituted. And in the present chapter we shall offer the Scriptural argument, that the ministry consists of three orders, now known as Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.

I. We shall first, however, notice two or three objections, which are usually urged against the Scriptural argument.

The first objection against this argument, and we doubt not, felt to be an objection by many persons, is that there is no express command or direction in