evils which these apostles contemplate in the Church after their decease. And when we come to the seven Churches of Asia, what do we find? The Lord Himself taking the divine government of the Church into His own hands, and walking in the midst of those Churches in an attitude and form of government of a most fearful character. His eyes, like to a flame of fire, His feet like burning brass, and a sharp sword out from His mouth—one Church threatened to be removed out of its place, and another threatened to be spued out of His mouth, and so on. Such are the facts which the Scripture furnishes. That is, divine government had so failed in the bishops, elders, or presbyters appointed or ordained to keep things right, that the Lord Himself takes up the government into His own hands, and addresses the Church for the last time in Scripture, to see if it will, as a collective body, hear His voice. If not, then He addesses the individual in such words as—“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear;” and “to him that overcometh will I do so and so,” etc. Now, how does all this comport with the notion of apostolic succession ? Apostolic suc cession supposes that divine government is always present to keep things right ; whereas the Lord’s own apostles testify that nothing would be kept right in the Church after their decease, and com mend the Church to God and the word of His grace. (Acts, xx. 32.) These facts are so forcible, that when put lately before an intelligent Romanist priest, he felt obliged to say that “the apostles did not always understand their own writings.” And, certainly, if apostolic succession or infallible jurisdiction were to keep things right after their departure, this answer of the Romanist priest is not so grotesque after all.[1] But it may be somewhat more difficult to show how those who came after understood the apostolic writings better than the apostles themselves. However, those writings testify in like manner that faithful ones would be found amid the organized failure of the Church—a remnant, so to speak, that would have to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. (Jude, iii.) These have continued, as all know, down to the present, and will emerge by-and-bye and appear with the Lord in glory; and thus will the Lord’s words be fulfilled, that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Such, beyond all question, is the gist and the drift of those apostolic epistles above referred to, viz., that while profession and confusion prevail all around, His people are in the midst.
- ↑ Appendix A.
