As to the powers given to the guides, or overseers, or bishops of the church, I allow their claims have been exceeding great. They have assumed to themselves the name of the church and clergy, hereby to distinguish themselves from the flock of Christ. They have taken on them, as we have seen, to determine, mend, and alter the faith; to make creeds for others, and oblige them to subscribe them; and to act as though our Savior had divested himself of his own rights, and given unto them “all power in heaven and earth.” But these claims have as little foundation in the gospel as in reason.
The words clergy and church, are never once used in scripture to denote the bishops, or other officers, but the christian people. St. Peter advises the presbyterers [[437]]“to feed the flock of God, and to exercise the episcopal office willingly, not as lording it over the heritages,” or clergy of God. And St. Paul, writing to his Ephesians, and speaking of their privileges as christians, says, that “by Christ they were made God’s peculiar lot,” or heritage, or clergy. In like manner the body of christians in general, and particular congregations in particular places, are called the church, but the ministers of the gospel never in contra-distinction to them. It is of all believers that St. Peter gives that noble description, that they are “a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices; a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, and a peculiar people,” or a people for his peculiar heritage, or “purchased possession,” as the word is rendered. Eph. i. 14. So that to be the church, the clergy, and the sacred priests of God, is an honour common to all christians in general by the gospel charter. These are not the titles of a few only, who love to exalt themselves above others.
Undoubtedly, the order of the christian worship requires that there should be proper persons to guide and regulate the affairs of it. And accordingly St. Paul tells us, [[438]]“that Christ gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers;” different officers, according to the different state and condition of his church. To the apostles extraordinary powers were given, to fit them for the service to which they were called; and, to enable them to manage these powers in a right manner, they were under the peculiar conduct of the spirit of God, Thus our Saviour, after his resurrection, breathed on his disciples the Holy Ghost, and said, [[439]]“Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained;” a commission of the same import with that which he gave them before, Matt. xviii. 18. “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.” To “bind, is to retain men’s sins; and to loose, is to remit their sins.” And this power the apostles had; and it was absolutely necessary they should have it, or they could never have spread his religion in the world.
But wherein did this binding and loosing, this retaining and remitting sins, consist? What, in their saying to this man, I absolve you from your sins; and, to the other, I put you under the sentence of damnation? would any considerate man in the world have ever credited their pretensions to such an extravagant power? or can one single instance be produced of the apostles pretending to exercise it? No: their power of binding and loosing, of retaining and remitting sins, consisted in this, and in this principally, viz. their fixing the great conditions of men’s future salvation, and denouncing the wrath of Almighty God against all, who, through wilful obstinacy, would not believe and obey the gospel. And the commission was given them in the most general terms, “whose soever sins ye retain, &c.” not because they were to go to particular persons, and peremptorily[peremptorily] say, “you shall be saved, and you shall be damned;” but[but] because they were to preach the gospel to gentiles as well as jews, and to fix those conditions of future happiness and misery that should include all the nations of the earth, to whom the gospel should be preached.
This was their proper office and work, as apostles; and, in order to this, they had the spirit given them, to bring all things that Christ had said to their remembrance, and to instruct them fully in the nature and doctrines of the gospel. And as they have declared the whole counsel of God to the world, they have loosed and bound all mankind, “even the very bishops and pastors of the church, as well as others,” as they have fixed those conditions of pardon and mercy, of future happiness and misery for all men, from which God will not recede, to the end of time. This was a power fit to be entrusted with men under the conduct of an unerring spirit, and with them only; whereas the common notion of sacerdotal or priestly absolution, as it hath no foundation in this commission to the apostles, nor in any passage of the sacred writings, is irrational and absurd, and which the priests have no more power to give, than any other common christian whatsoever; no, nor than they have to make a new gospel.
I would add, that as the apostles received this commission from Christ, they were bound to confine themselves wholly to it and not to exceed the limits of it. They were his servants who sent them; and the message they received from him, that, and that only, were they to deliver to the world. Thus St. Paul says of himself, that [[440]]“God had committed to him the world of reconciliation,” and that he was “an ambassador for Christ;” that he [[441]]“preached not himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and himself the servant of others for Jesus’ sake;” that he had [[442]]“no dominion over others faith,” no power to impose upon them arbitrary things, or articles of faith, which he had not received from Christ; and that accordingly he [[443]]“determined to know nothing but Christ, and him crucified,”[crucified,”] i. e. to preach nothing but the pure and uncorrupted doctrines of his gospel; and that this was his great comfort, that he had “not shunned to declare the counsel of God.”
If then the inspired apostles were to confine themselves to what they received from God, and had no power to make articles of faith, and fix terms of communion and salvation, other than what they were immediately ordered to do by Christ, it is absolutely impossible that the clergy can have that power now; who have, as I apprehend, no immediate commission from Christ, nor any direct inspiration from his Holy Spirit. Nor is there any thing in the circumstances of the world to render such a power desirable; because the apostles have shewn us all things that we need believe or practise as christians, and commanded the preachers of the gospel to teach no other doctrines but what they received from them. Hence St. Peter’s advice to the elders, that they, [[444]]“should feed the flock of God, not as lording it over the heritage.” And St. Paul, in his epistles to Timothy, instructing him in the nature of the gospel doctrines and duties, tells him, that [[445]]“by putting the brethren in remembrance of these things, he would approve himself a good minister of Jesus Christ;” and commands him to [[446]]“take heed to himself, and to the doctrines” he had taught him, “and to continue in them;” charging him, [[447]]“in the sight of God, and before Christ Jesus, to keep the commandment given him, that which was committed to his trust, without spot, unrebukeable, till the appearance of Christ Jesus.” These were the things to which Timothy was to confine himself, and to commit to others, that they might be continually preached in the christian church; and, of consequence, it is the same apostolic doctrine that the bishops, or elders, or ministers of the church, are to instruct their hearers in now, as far as they understand it, without mixing any thing of their own with it, or of any other persons whatsoever.
The great end and design of the ministerial office, is for the [[448]]“perfecting of the saints, and the edifying of the body of Christ.” Hence the elders are commanded “to take heed to themselves, and to the flock, over which the Holy Ghost had made them bishops, to feed the church of God.” They are likewise exhorted to “hold fast the faithful word, as they had been taught, that by sound doctrine they may be able to exhort and convince others.” They are to “give attendance to reading, exhortation, and doctrine,” and to put others in remembrance of the great truths of the gospel: charging them, before the Lord, not to strive about unprofitable words, but to “be gentle to all men,” and “in meekness to instruct even those who oppose.” They are to “contend earnestly for the faith,” as well as other christians, but then it is for “that faith which was once delivered to the saints,” and, even for this, [[449]]“the servant of the Lord is not to fight.” He is not to use carnal but spiritual weapons; nor to put on any armour but that of righteousness on the right hand, and on the left. They are to [[450]]“speak the truth,” but it must be [[451]]“in love.” They should be “zealously affected,” but it should be always “in a good thing.” They must “stop the mouths of unruly and vain talkers,” but it must be by “uncorruptness of doctrine, gravity, sincerity, and sound speech, that cannot be condemned.”
Upon these, and the like accounts, they are said to be “over us in the Lord”[Lord”], “to rule us,” and to be “our guides;” words that do not imply any dominion that they have over the consciences of others, nor any right in them to prescribe articles of faith and terms of communion for others. This they are expressly forbidden, and commanded to preach the word of God only, and pronounced accursed if they preach any other gospel than that which they have received from the apostles. And, of consequence, when we are bid “to obey” and “submit ourselves“ to them, it is meant then, and then only, when they “rule us in the Lord;“ when they speak to us the word of God, and “labour in the word and doctrine.” In all other cases, they have no power, nor is there any obedience due to them. They are to be respected, and to “be had in double honour for their work sake,”[sake,”] i. e. when they “preach not themselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord,” and when their faith and conversation is such, as to become worthy our imitation. But if “they teach otherwise, and consent not to the words of our Lord Jesus; if they doat about words whereof come envy, strife, and railing, supposing that gain is godliness, from such we are commanded to withdraw ourselves.” The episcopal character, however otherwise greatly venerable, then forfeits the reverence due to it, and becomes contemptible.
So that there are no powers or privileges annexed to the episcopal or ministerial character, in the sacred writings, that are in the least favourable to the cause of persecution, or that countenance so vile and detestable a practice. As to the affair of excommunication, by which the clergy have set the world so often in a flame, there is nothing in the sacred records that confines the right of exercising it to them, nor any command ever to exercise it, but towards notorious and scandalous offenders. The incestuous Corinthian was delivered over to satan by the church in full assembly, on which account his punishment or censure is said to be [[452]]“by many.” And though St. Paul bids Titus to “reject an heretic,” he also bids the Corinthians to [[453]]“put away that wicked person from amongst them,” which had brought such a scandal upon their church; and the “Thessalonians, to withdraw themselves from every brother that should walk disorderly.” So that as the clergy have no right, from the new testament, to determine in controversies of faith, nor to create any new species of heresy, so neither have they any exclusive right to cut off any persons from the body of the church, much less to cut them off from it for not submitting to their creeds and canons; and, of consequence, no power to mark them out by this act to the civil magistrate, as objects of his indignation and vengeance.