will be no envy, no jealousies; all kings, each having his own crown, and each rejoicing in the glory of another, and all in His, who that day shall be all in all."

(2.) The doom of the unfaithful christian elder.

These words of the apostle, while they describe the final destiny of the faithful christian pastor, naturally suggest the awful truth respecting the christian elder who has not fed the flock of God, who has not superintended aright his heritage. What is to become of him who has done his work by constraint, not willingly, for filthy lucre, not of a willing mind, who has lorded it over God's heritage, and has not been an ensample to the flock; shall he be crowned? No; he has not "striven," or, at any rate, "not striven lawfully." The doom of the unprofitable, the doom of the unfaithful, servant will be his. Expelled from the family of God, he will be cast into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. His portion is with the hypocrites, a class peculiarly hateful to him who desires truth in the inward part; with the perfidious, who have broken their engagements both to God and to man. And it is his fit place; for the honor of God, the cause of truth, the interests of souls, were put into his hands; he accepted the trust, and basely betrayed them all. In the prison of hell, with "the basest, the lowermost, the most dejected, most underfoot and down-trodden vassals of perdition," must he have his everlasting abode? "This pertaineth to him as the portion of his cup." What christian elder can think of these things, can realize them to his mind, without having new nerve given to his resolution to be "faithful to him who has appointed him;" "faithful to death," that he may "obtain the crown of life," and escape the brand of everlasting shame and contempt; that he may be greeted with the invitation, "Well done, good and faithful servant," come up hither; instead of meeting the heart-withering denunciation, " Depart, depart, I never knew you." You called me, Lord; but I never considered you as my servant, for I knew you were not.

1

Thus have I brought to a close my illustrations of the first part of this paragraph, that part of it which refers to the duties of the officebearers of the christian church to those committed to their care. But ere proceeding farther, I would press on my own mind, and on the minds of my brethren in the eldership in this congregation, the solemn considerations which, in the illustration of this passage of Scripture, have been placed before us. Let us remember, that this word of exhortation is as really addressed to us, as it was to those to whom the epistle was originally written. Let us humble ourselves, under the consciousness how very imperfectly we have discharged the inestimably important duties of our most responsible situation. Let us cast ourselves on our Master's kindness, for the forgiveness of all that has been wanting and wrong in our official conduct; and while in our inmost hearts saying, "Who is sufficient for these things?" let us, undiscouraged though not unwarned by our former failures, cherish an overgrowing resoluteness of determination, by his grace, to be

1 Milton.

"steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of our Lord," assured that our labors shall not be in vain in the Lord.

Holy brethren, partakers of this high vocation, elders, suffer the words of exhortation from one who also is an elder. They shall be the words of the holy apostles of our common Lord: "I charge you before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that ye take heed to yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers. Hold the mystery of faith in a pure conscience. Be examples to the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Let no man despise you. O men of God, flee pride, strife, evil surmisings, perverse disputings, and that love of money which is the root of all evil. Follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life. Hold fast the form of sound words. Hold fast what you have attained; let no man take your crown. I give you charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before 'Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, that you observe these things, without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality. Keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ which in his times he shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, neither can see: to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen."1

IL-OF THE DUTIES OF THE MEMBERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH TO THEIR OFFICE-BEARERS.

I go on now to call your attention to the view which the text gives us of the duties of the members of christian churches towards their office-bearers. This is contained in the first clause of the fifth verse, "Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves to the elder." Before proceeding farther, however, it will be proper that I endeavor to satisfy you that these words are, indeed, an injunction of the duties of churchmembers to their office-bearers, and not, as many have supposed, of the duties of the young to the aged. Were we merely looking at the words, without taking into consideration the connection in which they are introduced, this last mode of viewing them would probably be that which would first occur to every reader; but it requires only a little reflection to see: first, that the connection by no means leads us to expect here an injunction of the duties of the young to the aged, and that the language by no means obliges us thus to understand it; and, secondly, that the connection does lead us to expect an injunction of the duties of the private members of the church, as contra-distinguished from the office-bearers; and, still farther, that while there is nothing in the language which is inconsistent with this mode of interpretation, there is something which cannot be satisfactorily explained on any other supposition.

12 Tim. iv. 1. Acts xx. 28. 1 Tim. i. 19; iii. 9; iv. 12. Tit. i 15. 1 Tim. vi. 11, 12. 2 Tim. i. 13. Rev. iii. 11. 1 Tim. vi. 13-16.

There can be no doubt that the first four verses of the chapter refer to the duties of christian office-bearers; and as little, that the injunction in the fifth verse has a close connection with the injunctions contained in these verses, a connection intimated by the connective particle "likewise;" a word which seems to intimate that the duties enjoined are correlative, or, at any rate, belong to the same general family of duties. In enjoining domestic duties, after stating the duties of servants, the apostle says, "Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands;" and after stating the duties of wives, he says, "Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life: that your prayers be not hindered." The word certainly leads you to expect the injunction of some kindred, some ecclesiastical, duty, not the injunction of a duty belonging to an entirely different class.

2

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It is the ordinary practice of the apostles, a practice plainly dictated by the proprieties of the case, to enjoin the duties rising out of mutual relations in succession; thus, "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands; husbands, love your wives." Children, obey your parents; fathers, provoke not your children to anger." 'Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters; masters, do the same thing to them." When, therefore, we meet with an injunction to elders to do their duty to a certain class clearly defined, and then find a certain class, not quite so clearly defined, called on to do their duty to elders, we naturally conclude that the objects of the first exhortations are the subjects of the second, and not some other class altogether.

Had the office-bearers been represented as spiritual fathers, and had the injunction run thus, Fathers in Christ, carefully superintend and instruct the family of God committed to your care;' and been followed by the command, Likewise, ye children, be submissive to the fathers;' would not every one at once have seen that, in the latter clause, it was not the duty of children to their parents that was enjoined, but that of spiritual children to their spiritual fathers -or in other words, of the members of the church to the officebearers of the church?

It seems very unnatural, without a strong reason, to suppose the elders of the fifth verse to be a different class of men from the elders of the first verse; and, if they are the same class, it seems strange that young persons alone should be called on to perform to them a duty which is owing to them by all to whom they stand in official relation. Besides, had the apostle meant to enjoin the duties of the young to the old, he would have used some other word for the old than that which he had just used to express office. Still further, the duty enjoined is one due to all official elders, from their office; and not due to any old man, merely from his age. It is not submission, but respect, that is due from the young to the old. "Thou shalt rise

1 'Opois manifeste ostendit eosdem hic significari presbyteros: sicut antea Petrus de presbyterorum erga suas oves, sic nunc de ovium erga suos пρоras officio disserit: quamobrem etiam recte Syrus interpres addidit affixum vestris.-Beza.

2 1 Pet. iii. 1, 7.

3 Eph. v. 22, 25; vi. 1, 4, 5, 9. Col. iii. 18-22; iv. 1.

4 Πρεσβύτεροι.

up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord."

We consider ourselves, then, as not only warranted, but shut up, to interpret "the younger," or the juniors here, as a general name for the ordinary church members, as contra-distinguished from their elders, in the same way as they are termed sheep, or a flock, when their office-bearers are termed shepherds; scholars, or disciples, when they are termed teachers; and as John the elder speaks of his converts as his children, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." I am not aware of the designation "younger" being used in any other part of the New Testament in the sense which it seems to bear here, though there is a passage where it is employed in a somewhat analogous way: "He that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.'

That the younger here are those who stand in some relation to the presbyters or elders just mentioned, is so evident, and its reference to the young in age is so unnatural, that we find a number of commentators supposing that the term refers to the six inferior orders of clergy, as they were called, after the simplicity of the primitive christian polity was departed from; and that submission referred to their duties to the bishops. The use of such an expression for church members was natural in the primitive times, when their official elders were generally not young men, certainly not young Christians; it being matter of statute that the elders should not be novices, but tried men, old disciples; so that the great body of the church members were both naturally and spiritually their juniors. Indeed still, in ordinary cases, the great body of the members of a church are younger than their elders.

On the supposition that the younger, the juniors, are the private members of the church, the whole passage has a character of close connection and complete consistency. We have first the duties of the office-bearers; then the duty of the private members of the church to their office-bearers; and then the duty of all connected with the church, whether officers or private members, clearly stated and powerfully enforced. The duties enjoined are just the duties belonging to those who respectively occupy those ecclesiastical relations. On the other supposition all is disjointed. An injunction of the duties of christian pastors is followed by an injunction of the duties of the young to the old; and this followed by an injunction of the duty which every man owes to every man; and the duties enjoined in the two last cases are not those which we expect; for, though the young are bound to respect the aged, they are not bound to submit to them; and, though every man is to be kind and just to every other man, every man is not bound to be subject to every man ; though there is an important sense, in which every christian man. should be subject to every other christian man; every church member to every other church member. Even Leighton, who follows the common mode of interpretation, acknowledges that the words have

1 Lev. xix. 32.
• See note C.

2 3 John 4.
• Salmeron.

3 Luke xxii. 26.

"some aspect to the relation of those that are under the discipline and government of the elders." The good archbishop was forgetful of the wise saying of Dr. Owen: "If Scripture have more meanings than one, it has no meaning at all." If the younger means the members of the church, it cannot mean the young properly so called.

Having thus ascertained that the injunction before us is an injunction to church members to perform their duty to their office-bearers, let us proceed now to inquire into the meaning of the injunction. What is the duty of church members to their office-bearers, as here described? The duty here enjoined is substantially the same as that enjoined by the Apostle Paul, in his Epistles to the Thessalonians and Hebrews. "We beseech you, brethren, to know, or acknowledge, them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake." Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls, as they who must give account; that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you."

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It is quite plain, from these passages, that obedience and submission are required from church members to their office-bearers. It is unhappily too certain, that much mischief has been done, and much good prevented, by church officers assuming a power and authority that do not belong to them, but to the one Lord, and encroaching on the liberties which every Christian possesses in unalienable right, by virtue of the gift of this one Lord; and by church members impiously permitting such an usurpation, and tamely submitting to such encroachments on their privileges. But it is just as unhappily notorious, that much mischief has been done, and much good prevented, in the christian church, by anarchy as well as tyranny: by church members refusing to obey them that are over them in the Lord, and by church officers allowing themselves to be denuded of the authority with which their Master has clothed them, and without the exercise of which the great and salutary ends of their office cannot be gained.

A christian church is a very free society; but they mistake the matter who consider it as a democracy. It is a monarchy, administered by inferior magistrates, chosen by their fellow-subjects, who are to execute the King's laws, being guided solely by his word, and neither by their own judgment or caprice, nor by the opinions and will of those whom they govern. Christ is the Lord, and he administers his government by officers appointed according to his ordinance, and regulated by his laws. It is of great importance, both to the office-bearers and private members of a christian church, that they have distinct scriptural views on this subject, that the former may not exact what they have no right to, and that the latter may not refuse what, by the law of Christ, they are bound to give.

It is an elementary principle in the christian polity, that the officebearers of every christian church should be chosen by the members of that church. No man should become an office-bearer in the christian church, but thus by the suffrage of his brethren: and every individual, in joining a christian church which has office-bearers, by

1 1 Thess. v. 12, 13. Heb. xiii. 17.