CHAPTER 1

ON THE COMPATIBILITY OF GIFTS AND LOCAL CHARGES.
The author of the " Examination " says (p. 21), " The entire doctrine of Mr. Darby on ministry rests, as we have seen, on the separation he establishes between the ministry of gifts, and charges. Charges, which appear to be characterized, according to him, by the absence of any special gift, by election through human intervention and employment for secular uses, are the diaconate and episcopate, or the office of elder."
Next, after having quoted from the epistles various passages containing lists of gifts, the author adds (p. 24), " Mr. Darby cites especially, with confidence, four lists or enumerations of the ministries of the Spirit... lists which do not contain the denominations of elder or deacon, and which prove thus the decided separation established by the primitive Church between ministry and charges."
" This is assuredly the decisive point. If we find, as Mr. Darby contends, in the apostolic Church, on the one hand, gifts exercised in free ministrations for the edification of the take a little more account. The examination which, on this occasion, I have made of my previous publications, has convinced me of the justness of what I said, and has shown me that God has given me grace to keep, with much more exactness than this brother, within the limits of truth on the subject in question, a subject on which I agree with him. The controversy bears upon the points which he has avoided; among others, that as to whether the Church's fall has not altered the position of the children of God. A system which prefers the Church of Neufchatel to the apostolic times exposes itself to be received with some distrust.
Church; on the other, charges, the result of a human election for an external administration, and this, as two series without points of contact, the case is decided in favor of Mr. Darby. If, on the contrary, we can demonstrate, that these two series are two currents proceeding originally from the same source, and which, after having separated for a moment, tended more and more, from the apostolic times, to re-approach one another and to be lost in one single stream, the future instrument of the fruitfulness of the Church; then we are on the road towards justifying the present institution, which is, in its principle, nothing else than the fusion of the divine gift and the human charge in one and the same ministry."
This, then, is the point to which the author has directed all his arguments. He affirms that I contend that gifts and charges are " two series with no points of contact." Let us see how far my writings bear this out.
I take the liberty of citing a passage from my pamphlet entitled, " On the Presence and Action of the Holy Ghost in the Church " (p. 35), where I say: " That the bishop may be engaged in feeding the flock, I do not deny. But, from the fact that such a gift is useful in the episcopal office, it does not follow that all who possessed it were in this office, and still less that the office was the same thing as the gift. I may engage my clerk to write well and be a good accountant, and he must know these things in order to be clerk, but it does not follow that every scribe and keeper of accounts should be a clerk. This office supposes a confidence which extends to many other things, to the management of money and goods, to dealing with customers, etc. Thus, a man may be a pastor and lack many things necessary to a bishop, and never have been invested with this office. A man may lack the power of rule, discernment needed in order to watch over souls, gravity to have influence over light spirits in the details of life, personal acquaintance with souls, and, at the same time, be capable of feeding the flock with great success, without being clothed with the office of a bishop. This gift, namely, of pastorship, may, among other qualities, fit him for the office of a bishop; but an office which one is invested with, is not a gift given by Christ ascended up on high.
" Bishops, and not a bishop, for there were always several, were local officers, who only acted in the midst of the particular church in which they were found. A bishop was not a gift, nor a joint in the body according to the measure of the gift of Christ; but a local office, for which the possession of pastoral capacity was suitable among many other things. Pastorship is never presented as an office established by men, although bishops, who were, according to God, established by men, with a special object of watching over souls locally, may have possessed this gift and used it in their locality. These things are linked on one side, as the authority conferred on the apostles by Christ was linked with what had been given to them. For apostleship, although directly from God, was also an office, and that, we may say, from Christ as man, acting with authority in the government of the Church; and authoritative charges flowed from thence.
" The bishop may be called to pastoral care and teaching also, as qualities of his office. I do not doubt, historically speaking, that as man has continually more and more eclipsed the action of the Spirit of God in the Church, the gift became gradually lost in the office; but that makes no change in the word, and we live in times in which we must come either to the word or to Popery," pp. 4o, 41, 42.
How the author of the " Examination," after having read the pages I have just recalled to notice, can have been able to affirm that all my system depends on the incompatibility of gifts and offices, as on the incompatibility of two series without points of contact, is to me a puzzle. I even have said that, historically, gift was gradually lost in office. And when, in speaking of these two series, the author compares them to two streams which, from the times of the apostles, tended more and more to approach one another and to merge in one river, it might be said his ideas were borrowed from mine. Whether this brings him nearer the justification of the present institution, is another question. However this may be, in the very pages of my pamphlet quoted above, I treat the particular point on which the author of the " Examination " insists. And how, having carefully read these pages, he could present my views in such a manner, I know not. What is certain is, that the point which he views as decisive, cannot be so, since, with regard to the pastorate and episcopate, far from destroying what I have advanced, he only repeats it, attributing to me and combating as though it were my system, precisely the opposite of what I have said, and presenting triumphantly to upset me precisely what I had myself established. Such blows can take no effect; besides, how can one answer a writing, which, while I have affirmed positively that gifts and offices are connected on one side, seeks to show that I make of these two things " two series with no points of contact," and presents this mistake into which he has fallen, as the foundation of my system?
Let me be permitted to make another quotation from my " Remarks on the condition of the Church "; and it will be seen to what a degree the way in which, on this " decisive point," the author of the " Examination " presents my views, is devoid of foundation.
" As to what concerns the difference which exists between the elder and the pastor, I say that pastorship was a gift of the Holy Spirit, which the office of elder was not. This office was established by men in the Church, according to God no doubt; but it was a governmental institution, and not a gift from on high, although certain gifts and qualities were necessary to the one who was named elder. I have said that the gift of feeding the flock of God in one way or other was necessary or suitable to him, because it appears, by the Epistle to Timothy, that the elders who labored in the word and doctrine are distinguished from other elders."
I am sorry to be obliged to reproduce these extracts from my own writings, but the subiect, at bottom, connects itself with that which acts powerfully on the walk of Christians; and it is important it should at least be understood what is the real question.
In sum, here is what I have said, and what the author of the " Examination " has made me say.
I have said: gifts and offices are connected on one side. He has made me say that there is no point of contact between them.
I have said that in certain cases gifts were necessary to office- he makes me say that there is incompatibility between the two.
I say that gifts have been gradually lost in office-he says the same. Where then is the difference between us? Here it is. He considers it as a good thing that we are deprived of apostles and prophets; more: he affirms the Church to be in a better state than in the time of the apostles. I say, on the contrary, that the Church has lost much, that it is in a fallen state. The author of the " Examination " announces, from the outset, that he will leave aside this question. He apparently has not seen that here is the essential point. As to the points he touches on, we have seen he does not refute them; but that, however, is what he assumed to do.