It is a question of the dispensational standing of the Church in the world a statement that that depends wholly on the power and presence of the Holy Ghost, and that the Notion of a Clergyman contradicts His title and power, on which the standing of the Church down here depends. It is the habitation of God through the Spirit. Scripture is clear, that if the Gentiles do not abide in God's goodness, they will be cut off like the Jews.
It equally predicts a falling away, which is not continuing in God's goodness. I believe these times are hasting greatly. I add, that there may be no mistake, that I have an absolute confidence in the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus, the great Head of the Church, that what He builds will endure and be translated to heaven, when God judges the corrupt and evil system which He as certainly will do which bears His name, and Christ Himself becomes in glory the blessed witness of His unchangeable faithfulness and love.The doctrine of the church as the house of God Eph. 2, and 2 Tim. became developed in my mind much later; and I add here, that I believe the confounding the Church, as man built it, as committed to his responsibility 1 Cor. 3 resulting in the great house, with Christ's building though the former be God's building responsibly in the world and attributing the privileges of the body to all that are in the house, is the origin of the corruption, which has defiled, and for which God will judge the guilty, professing body with His sorest judgment.
The statement which I make is this, that I believe the "Notion of a Clergyman" to be the sin against the Holy Ghost in this dispensation.
I am not talking of individuals wilfully committing it, but that the thing itself is such as regards this dispensation, and must result in its destruction. The substitution of something else for the power and presence of that holy, blessed, and blessing Spirit, [is the sin] by which this dispensation is characterised, and by which the unrenewedness of man, and the authority of man, holds the place which alone that blessed Spirit has power and title to fill, as that other Comforter which should abide for ever. If the "Notion of a Clergyman" has had the effect of the substitution of anything which is of man, and therefore subject to Satan, in the place and prerogative of that blessed Spirit exercising the vicarship of Christ in the world, it is clear, that however the providence of God may have overruled it, in the ignorance which He could wink at, it does, when stood upon and rested in against the presence and work of the Spirit, become direct sin against Him pure, dreadful, and destructive evil the very cause of destruction to the church.I must be observed here to say nothing whatever against offices in the Church of Christ, and the exercise of authority in them, whether episcopal or evangelical in character.
It were a vain and unnecessary work here to prove the recognition of that on which scripture is so plain.
But they are spoken of in scripture as gifts derived from on high: "He gave some apostles", Eph. 4: 11; so in 1 Corinthians 12, they are known only as gifts.
My objection to the "Notion of a Clergyman" is, that it substitutes something in the place of all these, which cannot be said to be of God at all, and is not found in scripture.
