Observer, Feb. 1, '75. The scenes of coming times, like a panorama, passed before the eye of the prophet Isaiah; he saw the joy of the people; the armour of war laid aside; the image of peace succeeding; the light expanding and becoming more intense, as the darkness retired, until he saw, as an event which had already occurred, the Sun of Righteousness, the Prince of Peace.- Albert Barnes. "In His days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace till the moon be no more. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." "Let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen." (To be continued.) "FOR JESUS' SAKE." Great God! why did'st thou frame yon vaulted skies; Why bid the everlasting hills arise; Dare billowy seas from bounded deeps to stray, And scatter life in varied form around? Why animate the earth-born, heaven-shaped clay, And image God in man? Hark to yon sound, "For Jesus' sake"! Words that all human boasts confound. For why-presumptious mortal-fondly dream Heaven's spangled banner decked for thee alone? Have earth's wierd monsters, now embalmed in stone, When man-sad ingrate-spurned the claims of heaven, "For Jesus' sake"-He made them sons who called Him foe Alas, poor man! Thy prospect how forlorn; Observer, Feb. 1, '75. Oh, for access to His exhaustless store! Thrice bless'd benevolence! with this bright key, "For Jesus' sake" fling wide the massive door Of Heaven's vast treasure house; and pauper want no more. Thy pittance? Vast is thy presumption grown! Receiving bread, and offering but a stone? In spite of tyranny's fell power, aspire The bands of superstition and of sin to break? But dared the rack, the prison, and the cross, Judging-compared with Him—all earthly things but dross! "For Jesus' sake "-hence-not from human deeds- Doubt's fear-tipp'd shafts defy! Ye warriors, who from sin, and man-made creeds, Would rescue souls, be this your battle cry! That binds you to each other-strangling strife! The worth of actions! for ambition's rife! Be this the motto and the motive of your life "For Jesus' Sake." J. C. VERCO. THE ORDINATION AT BETHANY. Last THE Christian Standard report of the ordination of three young men at Bethany appeared, with comment, in our pages for October. month we inserted remarks thereupon from one who will not allow his initials to appear, though urged so to do. He signs himself Inquirer; but is no novice, having been in our fellowship many years, though now, we trust only for a time, he has wandered into a place where the one man system prevails. So Inquirer thinks we have over coloured the picture, used hard and severe terms, and forgotten, that charity which thinketh no evil. far as these charges press upon us we have no care to answer them. But believing that there is need to call attention to a sort of parsonic Observer, Feb. 1, '75. 66 re-action, going on in many of those churches in America with which we are understood to be identified; and knowing that channels are open through which the churches in this country and its Colonies are likely to be influenced by them, it is occasionally needful to notice facts which point to a revival of repudiated elements of the kingdom of the clergy. The hard words consist in saying that circumstances appertaiming to the Bethany ordination are "destitute of apostolic example and in accord with the usages of mystic Babylon." We should have pleasure in withdrawing them could it be truthfully done, but the more we look at it the more clearly does it appear to run on lines laid down by the apostacy. Then Inquirer says: that we paint certain denominations having the one man as preacher, teacher, etc., who is called our minister, and say this term seems to be the one applied to these young men." He then asks, "Why so free with your brush? and why so forgetful of that charity which thinketh no evil? Is it not stated that they were set apart to the ministry of the word," etc. Surely we are not painting untruly when we describe denominations having in each church one man, designated the minister, who does the preaching, teaching, etc., of the church, being "set apart to the ministry of the word." We know of no ordination by the authority of the apostles other than that of elders and deacons. The Bethany transaction does not profess to refer to either of these. Then as an ordination (or induction into office), it cannot possess apostolic sanction, there being neither command nor example for it. To fully qualify for preaching the gospel, baptizing, planting churches, teaching saints, ordination is not required, and no instance of it can be produced. But Inquirer refers to one text, the only one that, with the most liberal use of the brush, could be made to approach the required shade. Acts xiii does record a laying on of hands, but says nothing on ordination, and does not indicate induction into a life-long work. In the church in Antioch were certain prophets to whom the Holy Spirit said: Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them; and when they had fasted and prayed and laid hands on them they sent them away." Now, according to Scripture, hands were laid on for various purposes; including ordination of elders and deacons, imparting the Holy Spirit, healing, and blessing. In the case of Paul the Holy Spirit was certainly not administered by the laying on of the hands of the men of Antioch, nor was he thereby constituted an elder or deacon; nor can we suppose that healing was intended. There remains the formal and well recognized act of blessing, or of invoking the blessing of God. Nor is there any reason why this should not be done now in any case in which the church sends on a special difficult and dangerous mission one of its members, irrespective of whether the mission has reference to preaching, and without regard to the apostle thus sent having or not having in a like way been dispatched on similar business. Look now at the two cases. Paul had been fully doing the work of an apostle and, in the highest sense, that of an evangelist for some nine years before hands were laid upon him at Antioch. He did not go up to Antioch from another church to be there ordained, as if that church could not have done it as well as the one in that city. He had Observer, Feb. 1,75. been there over a year, and it was the call of the Spirit to separate him from their loving fellowship that he might enter upon a special mission of vast importance and great danger. The special tour to which alone that laying on of hands referred was completed in a year or so, and then he returned to Antioch, rehearsed all that God had wrought, and remained a long time in that city. We are not, however, left to infer the nature of the act by which they were sent forth, nor the extent of the work covered by that act. It was not ordination. It was blessing, or commending to God. It had not reference to a work began years before and to end when Paul had fought his last battle for Christ. It covered only that work which was completed when he returned to Antioch. This is briefly but clearly stated in the next chapter, where we are told that they then "sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled.” This one text and case, then, is no help to the Bethany transaction, and Inquirer is using the brush rather heavily when he says it is thereby sustained. Let us look in another direction for incidents which may very well have served for a model for Inquirer's “commendable" ordination. In the kingdom of the clergy, men are ordained to the "ministry of the word" and called ministers. The usual course is for the young men to kneel before the officials, and by the laying on of their hands to be inducted into their order, so that this one ordination does for all time and all places. They are called " Reverend," a term not applied to more reverend brethren who are not wholly devoted to the ministry, though many of them do more work with better results for God and men than their very "Reverend" friends. These men usually call themselves Pastors and upon the strength of the one ordination to a life-long work hire themselves here and there, as churches may be vacant and willing to engage. Look now at the facts of Inquirer's “commendable" case. At Bethany there is a college and a church. There is in the college a "Ministerial course of Instruction." The three brethren, said to be ordained to the ministry of the word, had passed through the graduating class; one of them is stated to be of Pennsylvania, one of Ohio, and the other from Prince Edward Island. It is reasonable to suppose that young brethren going from distant churches to Bethany would, while there, hold membership in the church. Inquirer says they were for many years accustomed to exercise their gifts in that church; but in so putting it he uses the brush, notwithstanding his quotation marks. The account does not say many years. It says several, and that, in the nature of the case, means few. The three brethren are termed "candidates" and of one of them it is said, that he had been for some time preacher for the congregation in Maurissania, N.Y. This candidate is also said to have gone up "well approved by the church for which he was labouring." Why then, if he needed ordination at all, was he not ordained at that church? Why his journey to Bethany? The other two "presented testimonials from several churches among which they had been accustomed to minister in the word." Why must all these go up to Bethany where the church and the college are so closely united? Then why were the young men kneeling before the men who ordained them? Observer, Feb. 1, '75. That this is so done in the kingdom of the clergy we know; but we do not know any reason for setting one class of brethren to kneel to another in the Church of God. Then the men are represented as taking a vow of life devotion to the work. The "Indelibility of Orders" in the apostacy is well understood-once a clergyman, a clergyman for life. We again repeat that the thing is upon the lines of the apostacy, and not upon those of the apostles. But the first named of these three ordained ministers has already put in a plea for a well-known clerical distinction. He is not only willing to be called the Rev. H. S. Lobingier, but he has published, through the Christian Standard, reasons for designating his class by the term Reverend. He writes, "The laboured efforts of those alarmists who think they see in the use of this title a tendency to frightful retrogressions only serve to present them in an absurd and ridiculous character.' He then adds that he fails "to understand why any preacher of the gospel may not endeavour to make himself worthy of the title, Reverend' and bestow it wherever it rightfully belongs." If several years spent in passing through the "Ministerial course of Instruction" in Bethany College, crowned by an ordination vow to a life work, produces inmediately such fruit, then we say keep your young men from that Course of Instruction and from every place and every thing of like tendency. It is really sad, that at a time when leading spirits and master minds in the denominations renounce this piece of clerical presumption and distinction, that A. Campbell's College sends forth such a specimen of littleness and reversal of the sterling sense of its founder. One pleasing feature comes out. Though the President of Bethany College publishes no repudiation, and though the Editor of the Standard offers no protest, the spirit of A. Campbell survives in one who for so many years shared his sorrows and his joys, and his beloved wife, Mrs. A. Campbell, has written to the Paper in condemnation of the position taken by the newly-made "Reverend." A word on charity, and we conclude. We have charity enough to attribute all sincere and truthful intentions to Inquirer; those points on which he has used the brush not excepted. We deem the brethren ordained, and those who ordained them, fully sincere, and take it that according to their understanding the right thing has been done in the right way. So far as their motives are concerned our charity is unlimited. But it goes no further, and we have no wish that it should. Our charity extends to every honest Roman Catholic, but not to his Romanism-it covers every Baby Sprinkler, but not his Rhantism. Wrong acts are to be denounced; perversions of Christian principles call for reprobation. Charity has no place here and interposes no shield. The motives of the actors are sacred, and in this instance and in that respect our charity is perfect. We shall follow these remarks by part of a recent article from the pen of R. W. Dale, M.A., whose name stands as high as any among English Congregational Ministers, who, in the true spirit of Christian equality, repudiates the vanity that our newly-ordained friend sets himself to defend. ED. |