in some Dissenting publications, as in the writings of the evangelical clergy at least; but wherever we see a clerical order do we not at the same time see a practical contradiction of the scriptural constitution of ministry? How can a ministry of the flesh agree with a ministry distributed by the Spirit? How can an ordained clerical caste comport with the free exercise of gift acknowledged in the whole body of believers? We must, therefore, come to no other conclusion than that "the churches" of our days do not represent the divine order in their ministerial appointments. The origin and history of this great perversion we need not now examine; of the fact of a perversion-of an apostasy-there can be no doubt at all in the minds of those who are resolved to be guided in this inquiry by the Scriptures rather than by tradition.

Here then is a formidable array of scripture authority to establish the truths for which we plead: but what is the usual reply to so much and such serious evidence? Generally, an exclamation of amazement that we can propound anything so strange as that there is " no ministry, and no ordination to ministry in the New Testament." It behoves us therefore to be still more explicit, that we may shew both what scripture does and does not teach on the subject that we may prove our point both negatively and positively. Here, then, let it be remembered, that we are not to be deceived by the use of words diverted from their proper meaning, and conveying with them the ideas of tradition and not of the scriptures; for there is "ministry" in the New Testament, and abundantly set forth too there, far more abundantly than we are, for the most part, prepared to receive; but it has no reference to the idea of ministry handed down to us by tradition: it is therefore important again to state the traditional before we further make manifest the scriptural idea.. The ministry of professing Christendom, then, has a reference to a body of men set apart by sacerdotal ceremony from the body of believers, and ordained into an office in which they have exclusive right to preach, teach, feed, and tend the flock, and "administer the sacraments." We have then further to inquire, if the ministry of scripture answers to this traditionary representation of it.

In the New Testament, "ministry" is presented to us as any service of the saints to God and to his church, though in the English translation the meaning of the term is occasionally weakened or perverted. The English word frequently occurs; and in almost every instance it is the translation of one Greek word, diakovia, diaconia. In Heb. viii. 6, and ix. 21, “ministry" is given as the interpretation of Xerovpyia; but these two instances are the only exceptions. There are, however, several instances in which diakovia, diaconia, is translated by some other word than "ministry;" and this fact may at once enable us to understand how much confusion of thought may be introduced by a capricious translation, influenced

* We are not speaking here of the ministry of Christ; for his service, also called ministry, and he himself a minister.

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by clerical notions. In the following instances (besides some others not given) diakovia, diaconia, is not translated "ministry," but by some other word noted in italics. 1. "Martha was cumbered about much serving" (Luke x. 40). 2. "There was a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration" (Acts vi. 1). 3. "The disciples determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judæa" (Acts xi. 29). 4. "Touching the ministering to the saints it is superfluous to me to write to you" (2 Cor. ix. 1). 5. "Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto, the gospel of God" (2 Cor. ix. 13). 6. "If the ministration of condemnation is glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory" (2 Cor. iii. 9). 7. "I know thy works, and charity, and service" (Rev. ii. 19).

Now, in all these instances, we see at once that the word diaconia of the original, rendered in our English translation by these various words, has no such meaning as that with which we technically invest the word "ministry;" but in the following instances, owing to confused notions and the force of preconceived opinions, very many readers do attach the technical or clerical idea to the word, though it is still in the original the same diaconia. "Shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship" (Acts i. 25). Ministry here is service, service to God and to his church, not a clerical or episcopal office, as it is to be feared the translators wished the readers to understand it, if we may judge by their unwarrantable rendering of the word "bishoprick" in the 20th verse of that chapter. Again: "Say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it" (Col. iv. 17). Had diaconia been here translated service," it would have far more faithfully expressed the meaning of the original, and would at the same time have put the extinguisher on many a bright flash of pulpit eloquence, which this text has elicited, when it suited the preachers to deliver orations on the "ministerial office." Archippus had been known as one in service to the Lord and to his people: what that service was, we cannot now say, but it does not at all appear that it was preaching the Gospel, or the exercise of the pastoral office. Archippus might have had no gift for teaching or preaching; he might have had no gift for government: what his gift was it is impossible for us now to determine; only this is apparent, that the service for which he was known, he had "received in the Lord:" but such is the force of customary notions, that his "ministry" is generally supposed to have been an officially ordained pastorate, so that ministers of the establishment claim Archippus as one of their clergy; and dissenting* ministers, with equal confidence, tell us that he was a minister of a congregational church.

* I once heard an impressive and able sermon of unusual length from a celebrated dissenting minister on Col. iv. 17. Throughout the whole of

In 2 Tim. iv. 5, we have another text which is understood in the same way, "Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry," meaning the whole service of Timothy's redeemed life, as purchased by a price to be a servant of Christ his Lord. What sort of service that is, Paul explains in the following words, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith;" for this is the diaconia often on his mind. Any service and all service is 66 ministry" in the New Testament. "I go to Jerusalem to minister unto the saints" (Rom. xv. 25). "God will not forget your labour of love...... in that ye have ministered to the saints and do minister" (Heb. vi. 10), διακονήσαντες καὶ διακονοῦντες, words which the translators elsewhere turn into "the deacon's office," when it suits their purpose- "as every man hath received the gift, even so minister, diakovoÛVTES, the same one to another" (1 Pet. iv. 10). A text which not only implies a general liberty of ministry, but, according to the management of the translators in other passages, might be made to represent all believers as "ministers," which indeed is the meaning of the text when ministry is rightly understood. We need not wonder, however, at the mistakes on this subject, commonly cherished by the uninstructed, when we see the spurious notes at the end of the Epistles, regularly printed in our Bibles as part of the Scriptures; as, for instance, "This second epistle unto Timotheus, ordained the first bishop of the Ephesians, was written," &c. Very many simple readers of the Bible believe these notes to be genuine; and with such a belief, we can easily comprehend what must also be their mistakes about "ministry."

We may then conclude this part of our inquiry by this canon, that a minister never, in one single instance in the New Testament, means a clerical functionary; that "ministry" has the meaning of service in every instance where it is expressive of the actions of Christians; and that it frequently does refer to the service of all the saints to one another.

Still, however, to make the subject yet plainer, we must clear up some mistakes that have accumulated round the word diákovos, and which, in the English Bible, appears as "minister," "servant," or "deacon," as it suited the object of the translators to render it. Let it then be remembered, that the translators had a double task to perform, not only to give an English version of the Scriptures, but so to manage that version, as not to disturb the ecclesiastical order of their own communion. That this necessary caution was part of their task, we know by historical record; for King James expressly commanded them not to change "the old ecclesiastical words;" and in their preface, attached to the larger Bibles, they thus express themselves: "We have avoided the scrupulosity of his elaborate discourse, he took it for granted that Archippus was a "regularly ordained minister." The Fathers are not quite so sure of the matter, Jerome suggests that he was "a bishop:" Ambrose suspects he was a deacon:" but why not an archbishop or an archdeacon?

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the Puritans, who leave the old ecclesiastical words, and betake themselves to others." The effect of this caution is most conspicuous in their management of the words "bishop, overseer, deacon, minister, church," &c. &c.; but at present we have to investigate their management of the words, " ministry, minister, service, servant, deacon;" a management which with them was almost a necessity, as in the preface" to the form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating bishops, priests, and deacons," published in the larger prayer-books, we find this to be the first sentence, "It is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient authors, that, from the apostles' time, there have been these orders of ministers in Christ's Church; bishops, priests, and deacons." Here is an appeal to Scripture, together with "ancient authors," for the validity of the three orders of the Established Church: we may, therefore, conjecture how tenderly the clerical translators would handle the text, when it presented difficulties in the way of their ecclesiastical system.

Diaconos, diakovos, a word employed thirty times in the New Testament, has never once in the original the technical and official meaning of either a deacon or a minister. The diaconos of the New Testament is a person who in any way is serving God, when the word is used with reference to the Church of God: in two instances it is applied to express an ordinary domestic servant. "His mother said unto the servants-the servants which drew the water" (John ii. 5, 9). In Rom. xiii. 4, the ruler or magistrate is called “a servant of God to the Church for good."

The following instances will shew the uses of the word: "Whosoever will be great among you let him be your diaconos, and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your servant (slave)" (Matt. xx. 26). "If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and diaconos of all" (Mark ix. 35). "If any man would serve me (diaconè) let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my diaconos be; if any man serve (diaconè) me, him will my father honour" (John xii. 26). This is a very important instance of the usage of the word, as it is in fact a description of all Christ's deacons, ministers, or servants. Any one that serves Christ is his diaconos. "Jesus Christ was a diaconos of the circumcision for the truth of God" (Rom. xv. 8). "I commend unto you Phebe, our sister, which is diaconos of the church at Cenchrea" (Rom. xvi. 1).

In the following instances, the word "servant" is, in our English translation, rendered "minister;" but the word is here changed, in order to divest it of any clerical appearance. "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but servants (diaconi) by whom ye believed"” (1 Cor. iii. 5). "Our sufficiency is of God, who hath also fitted us to be servants of the new covenant" (2 Cor. iii. 6) kaνwσev nμas diaKOVOVS. "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light; therefore it is no great thing if his servants (diaconi) be transformed as the servants (diaconi) of righteousness" (2 Cor. xi. 15). "Are they servants

mi) of Christ? I more; in labours more abundant," &c. (2 Cor,

xi. 23). "Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful servant (diaconos)" (Eph. vi. 21). “Timotheus, our brother and servant (diaconos) of God" (1 Thes. iii. 2). These instances then will be sufficient to shew that the diaconos of the Greek text is a word generally expressive of service, and that to translate it deacon or minister in one passage, whilst in another it is rendered servant, is not to represent the true meaning of the original, but rather the ecclesiastical prejudices of the translator. And, in fact, the word "deacon," and "the office of a deacon," though making a conspicuous figure in the English Bible, have no existence in the original. This we shall soon establish. The origin of the deacon's office is generally traced to the transaction recorded in the sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where the whole church at Jerusalem, by the advice of the apostles, selected seven men "full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom" to superintend the service of the tables, and to silence the murmurings of some, who thought that "their widows were neglected in the daily ministration." The church chose seven holy men for this duty; and when they were chosen, the apostles prayed, and laid their hands on them. But no mention is here made that these persons were called " deacons ;"* nor in any other place of the New Testament is this asserted: and we may be certain, that if this were indeed the origination of the deacon's office, the office must have ceased even before the death of some of the apostles; for as it had reference to peculiar local circumstances, namely the common table of the saints at Jerusalem, and as we see no such peculiar circumstances in any of the other churches, so must it have ceased when the necessity ceased to which it owed its existence. This is discoverable by a close attention to the text, which from the original is thus to be read-" Look out among you seven men of honest report, whom we will appoint for this necessity." In the English Bible we read it "this business," but the word is xpeta, which though it occurs upwards of forty times in the New Testament, is in every instance but this, uniformly rendered "need" or necessity.' Now the difference in the translation is important; let it stand 66 over this business," and it leaves a general impression that "the deacons" were appointed to take care of the poor in the

In "the Church Members' Guide," a book of authority amongst those to whom it is addressed, there is a curious disquisition on the deacon's office-curious it is, as shewing that the dissenters are, after all, compelled to go to tradition to establish the deacon. The author, after stating the opinion entertained by some, that the sixth chapter of Acts does not record the origin of the deacon's office, puts this question, "If this be not the origin of the deacon's office, WHERE SHALL WE FIND THE ACCOUNT? and what is still stronger, if this be not the institution, St. Paul has given directions about this office, the duties of which are not, in that case, mentioned in the word of God." The author gives then a reason for considering this the origin. "Ecclesiastical history [tradition] informs us that the office was always considered, from the very earliest ages, as designed for the relief of the poor; if so, how natural it is to trace up its origin to this circumstance, which so easily accounts for it." But this is dangerous ground for a dissenter to tread on; for what will not ecclesiastical history inform concerning diocesan prelacy?