SECTION 4

OBSERVATIONS IN DETAIL-WHO BREAKS THE BREAD-APOSTOLIC POSITION-MEDIATIZED GIFTS AND FREE GIFTS-PAUL AT CORINTHTHE MINISTRY OF PAUL OVERTURNS THE SYSTEM OF THE "EXAMINATION."
Many other assertions of the author are no less devoid of proof.
When he says, that Jesus " had left to His apostles no positive direction as to the constitution of the Church " he seems to attribute to Christ on earth the office of founding and organizing the Church. This is to confound entirely the work of Christ while He was on earth, and the constitution of the Church. The Church only began after the departure of Jesus, and the author himself acknowledges this truth, when he says that Pentecost gave birth to the Church.
He says, in speaking of the apostles: " It is they who go from house to house, breaking bread." It was neither the apostles, nor any one else, in my opinion. Those who broke bread were those of whom it is said that all those who believed were together in one place, and had all things in common, sold their possessions, distributed them, and continued with one accord in the temple. The expression kat oikon signifies, not from house to house, but at home in contrast with the temple. They broke bread in private houses and not in the temple.
When he says that the apostles abandon " by degrees the pastoral position," in order to take, relatively to the entire Church, an apostolical position, he affirms a thing of which scripture says not one word. Scripture says rather the contrary. It was agreed, as Gal. 2:9 teaches us, that Paul and Barnabas should go to the Gentiles, and that Peter, James, and John should go to the Jews. Here, then, the " Examination " rests its system on an invented fact.
When, moreover, he establishes two categories of gifts: namely, gifts arranged into office, and " in some degree mediatized " (that is to say, gifts which, no longer depending immediately on the Lord from whom they proceed, and to be exercised under His immediate authority, are placed under the authority of an office conferred by men and exercised mediately); and " other gifts which appear to have always preserved their independence, as those of prophecy, of tongues, of contemplative knowledge, the exercise of which does not seem ever to have been put in regular order by an external consecration ";-when, we say, the " Examination " establishes, as one of the proofs of the development of the Church, and puts in distinction with and almost in opposition to each other " a regular ministry of offices," and " irregular ministries," gifts not arranged into office order; when it adds, that the posterior origin of an office (that of elders), indicates that it was naturally superior to an office of more ancient institution," the " Examination " does but multiply assertions entirely devoid of foundation and of proofs. Was the apostleship, the most ancient of offices, naturally inferior to the others? Besides, apostleship was an office before it was a gift; what then is a gift brought into the regular order of office? The gift of tongues dates from Pentecost itself. Miracles, healings, prophesyings, all sorts of gifts, which have no connection with offices, are found in the Church from the beginning. The whole system of the " Examination " is nothing but a system.
When, in speaking of the church in Corinth, the " Examination " takes the liberty of affirming that there was " a marked distinction between free ministries, to which the edification of the Church is entrusted, and the offices of elders and bishops, the place of which would perhaps have been encroached upon by the gifts, if the apostleship had not come to occupy it, and to fulfill for the moment its functions," whence did he draw this? There may perhaps have been more gifts in one church than in another; but who says that, in the epistle to the Corinthians, Paul fulfills for the moment the duties of elder or deacon? Can pastors and elders of the Canton of Neufchatel say, with Paul, in this epistle, " If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord? "
Moreover, the manner in which the ministry of Paul, " as of one born out of due time," began, overturns the whole system of the " Examination." Nor does the author say anything at all about it. He speaks indeed of his consecration; but that is quite a different question. The fact is, that Paul, who was an apostle, " not of men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead " (Gal. 1:1), could not possibly figure in any development of " human order." And it is on this that Paul insists absolutely in the epistle to the Galatians. And it is worth remarking, that after that this apostleship, which is neither of men nor by man, is shown us in activity,. the other apostles disappear entirely from the biblical history of the Acts.