Our first inquiry, then, as to where the ministerial commission is found, we shall consider now as fully answered, viz: in the final charge of our Saviour to the eleven disciples, when they were "sent" a second time on their full mission. To this sacred instrument the existing ministry of the "One Catholic and Apostolic church" must point as the origin of their office. From the solemn hour in which the Apostles were first invested with it, to the present moment, like the church of which it is an essential part, the gates of hell have never been suffered to prevail against it. No one who believes in the providence of God, (especially over his church,) or trusts the explicit promise of the Saviour, "Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world," can suppose that this visible authority of the visible church has ever perished; in other words, that the succession of the commission has ever been interrupted.

Our next inquiry is, whether there is other comany mission in the New Testament for the christian ministry? I know of none. It is, indeed, by some alleged, that a commission to the second order of the ministry, (Presbyters,) was given by our Saviour to the seventy disciples. It is true a certain commission was given; but that it was for the christian ministry at all, or for the second order, is not so clear. Such an hypothesis, we believe, will be met, at each step of the enquiry, with insuperable difficulties.

In the first place, it could not have been the second order, for Christ, while on earth, was the first. The twelve, whom he had chosen "to be with him," were the second; and the seventy, whom he sent "before his face," were, consequently, the third and last. Now it may be said, that upon our Saviour's removal from this earthly scene of his ministrations, the Apostles, the second order, were elevated to the first, and the seventy, the third order, were elevated to the second. But this is anticipating, and taking for granted a state of things which cannot be shown to have existed. In part it was true. The eleven were raised to the first order by an express commission. Not so the seventy. We are

bound to reason from the case as it stands the actual commission and office of the seventy as they did exist.

And then it is evident they were of the third and lowest order, and not of the second.

But secondly, were they an order at all of the christian ministry as it was finally and permanently established? All the notice we have of the seventy is found in Luke, (x. 1, 19.) In no other place of the New Testament are they ever mentioned. "After these things, the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place whither he himself would come"-" And the seventy returned again with joy saying Lord the devils are subject unto us through thy name.' Will any candid and unprejudiced reader say that this does not bear all the marks of a temporary office and mission? They, like the twelve in their first apostleship, were to go before his face and prepare his way before him. Moreover, the christian church in the proper sense of the term and by consequence the christian ministry, had not yet been established. If they were a permanent order of ministry and not subsequently disbanded, is it not most unaccountable that we never after hear of them, or their proceedings, neither in the full records of the Evangelists, nor in the still more detailed history of the Acts of the Apostles? Where were the seventy at the awful hour of the crucifixion of their master? Amid all the stirring events immediately preceding and following that great transaction, not one syllable do we hear of these seventy; whereas the twelve are constantly spoken of, as also the other disciples indiscriminately. Where were they after the resurrection? Are they ever recognized as a distinct and separately existing body? How shall this omission be accounted for? Were no instructions, no consolations to be given them before their Lord separated from them forever? They had a commission indeed during the life time of Christ as had the twelve, but was it repeated or enlarged after the resurrection? And why not? wherefore should there be an enlargement of the commissiona final commission in the case of the eleven and that recorded by all the Evangelists and embodied in terms far more comprehensive and explicit than the first-and none for the seventy? Did they alone stand in need of no renewed instructions-no express commission continuing

their office in existence, which, by the very limitation of its terms, had expired?

Furthermore, in the account given in the Acts of the Apostles, of the struggling infant church, it is only the Apostles who single-handed, for a long period preached the gospel and bore the brunt of the conflict-the heat and burden of the day. They only at the first are persecuted and imprisoned. Where now were the second order of the ministry the seventy? Could they preach the gospel with impunity and escape all persecutiongive no offence? Could this be, if such an order then existed? Impossible. From a consideration then of the facts of the case as well as the terms of the commission of the seventy we are led irresistibly to the conclusion that they were a temporary order, bearing a commission (expressly limited in time and place) during the period of our Saviour's sojourn on earth, that they had no distinct existence as ministers or preachers of the gospel during the early history of the Church as contained in the "Acts of the Apostles." It hence appears that there is but one ministerial commission in the New Testament, emanating directly from Christ himself-viz. that to the eleven.

THE ORDAINING POWER GIVEN BY THE COMMISSION
TO THE APOSTLES ONLY.

SECTION THIRD.

We proceed now to show that by the commission the Apostles were invested with the power of ordination :

This we shall argue, first, from the express language of the commission; secondly, from the nature of it; and, thirdly, from the well-attested facts of the case.

First. In the commission, as recorded by John, we find these words: "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." Nothing similar or equivalent to this was ever uttered to any of the disciples save the eleven

only. The expression occurs but once in the New-Testament; and it will be found, on a slight examination, to possess peculiar force and meaning. For, if the Apostles were sent, even as Christ had been sent by the Father, they were clothed with similar powers; at least so far as the ministerial functions of His office were concerned. That which was peculiar to the Messiah, distinctive of his mediatorial character, was, of course, incommunicable; but, as the chief Pastor of His flock in person, as the visible administrator of the visible church on earth, this, of necessity, before His ascension, he delegated to his chosen Apostles and their successors forever. All admit that the Apostles were invested with the power of ruling the church; but what express authority for ordaining? This is the point contested. Why, their sufficient warrant was, that Christ had sent them, even as he was sent ; and if he was sent with power from the Father to send them, then they were sent with the like power to send others. Christ possessed the ordaining right; the Apostles also possessed it. For, in some respects, (it cannot be questioned,) there was a perfect similarity, or rather identity of office; and, if this similarity was not found in the ordaining power, where shall we look for it?

The power of sending others was as essential to the church's existence, as the power of preaching, ruling, or baptizing. It must be lodged somewhere; and if they, who were sent with an express identity of office, possessed it not, then, we ask, who can lay claim to it? If we admit at all the power of ordaining in the church, we are compelled to grant it, by divine right, to the Apostles. And that it was exclusively theirs, is evident, from the fact that the words, 66 as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you," are found but once in the New Testament; and were never said to mortal man save to the cleven only.

But secondly, we argue the same thing from the nature of the commission. The matter to which it referred— viz. a visible church on earth for man's redemption, was for all time. As long as there were souls to be saved, just so long must there be a church, and ministry, and ordinances of divine grace. Thus was the object about which the commission was concerned a perpetual object;

consequently the commission itself was designed to be perpetual. If so, it was transferable and involved the power, on the part of its possessors, of ordaining others, Had they not exercised this power, the commission must, in time, have run out and become extinct, with the close of the personal career of the eleven. But then the commission would have been totally inadequate to the end for which it was established, and with it must have perished the visible church itself; unless we are prepared to admit that men were to be allowed to assume an office which Christ himself deemed it not right to assume. There is not another supposable case in regard to this point-not another alternative. The Apostles were the only commissioned ministry of Christ. This fact being so, either they were to perpetuate their office by ordaining successors, or their office must cease to be, and consequently the church be blotted out; or, finally, men must assume, on their individual responsibility, this office, and preserve it-all men or any men, for there is and can be in the supposition no restrictions expressed or implied. Which of these three alternatives we are at liberty, as christian and reasonable men, to take, is evident to all. We must take the first; and believe, that, in the very nature of their agency, there was clearly implied the power on the part of the Apostles to perpetuate their order. The only possible way of evading this conclusion, is, to deny the fact from which it is drawn, and say that our Saviour issued another commission for the ministry beside that which he gave to the eleven, so that when one expired, in the course of nature, the other might survive. Furthermore, that other must be selfperpetuating; the very quality we claim for this. The objection, then, destroys itself, and the conclusion stands. Finally, we may ask: Was not the church designed to be perpetual? If it was, then there is implied in the Apostleship of the eleven the power to send others. To this argument for the perpetuity of the Apostolic office, drawn from the nature of the commission, we may add another, equally conclusive, viz: the words in the commission itself, as they occur in Matt. (xxviii. 20,) “ Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." It is hardly necessary to enter here into a formal proof,

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