Twelve Apostles

“ When they returned from that missionary journey it was with much rejoicing because even the devils were subject unto them. What other officers the Lord ordained and set apart, the scriptures do not reveal. That the Twelve Apostles were empowered to set in order all things pertaining to the Church, is, nevertheless, beyond dispute. We learn that under their direction and ministry, as branches were formed and the work of the ministry required it, high priests, evangelists, patriarchs, elders, bishops, deacons, priests, pastors and teachers were called into the service of the Church. ”

“ But in the next world, can these sixty or seventy successors stand in the position of the first chosen? No. So it is in regard to the latter-day Apostles. In this Church we have had ordained to the Council of the Twelve Apostles, twenty-eight persons. Six of the original Twelve Apostles apostatized, and three of their successors apostatized, making nine apostates that once had hands laid upon them, ordaining them to the Apostleship. These apostates are mostly dead. We cannot suppose that they can hold an office in eternity which they have forfeited. ”

“ These twelve Christ now sends forth, that they may begin to discharge the office to which they were called, that they may serve their novitiate under Himself as their master, that afterwards being made priests and bishops, they may after His death fully accomplish their office and ministry. Wherefore Christ made the Apostles the Princes of His Church, and superior to all the faithful, both martyrs, confessors, and virgins, not only in office and dignity, but also in grace and sanctity. ”

“ I fear we have neglected the real ground on which our authority is built,—our apostolical descent.
We have been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The Lord Jesus Christ gave His Spirit to His Apostles; they in turn laid their hands on those who should succeed them; and these again on others; and so the sacred gift has been handed down to our present Bishops, who have appointed us as their assistants, and in some sense representatives. ”

“ Just as, therefore, a true Christian is one who follows Christ in his life, so a truly apostolic man is the priest who follows the teaching of the apostles, living the life of an apostle and teaching his doctrine. Hence, any pope is to be called apostolic so far as he teaches the doctrine of the apostles and follows them in works. But, if he puts the teaching of the apostles aside, teaching in word or works what is contrary, then he is properly called pseudo-apostolic or an apostate. ”

“ So the Holy Baptist at the beginning of the Gospel puts forth this as an Evangelical principle, concerning any Divine Ministry, not excepting Christ’s Own; “A man can take unto himself nothing” [margin] . (John iii. 27, &c.) St. Paul likewise calls Christ Himself “the Apostle and High-priest,” linking the two ideas together—joining the Apostolical and the Priestly offices—but saying that even He “glorified not Himself to be made an High-priest.” [88] The Father “sent” Him; and “as His Father sent Him, so He sent His Apostles.” ”

“ In the first place, it is clear from the Scripture that St. Peter's supremacy was to continue. A number of the ablest Protestant writers have proved most conclusively what is called the Apostolic succession, that is, that Bishops are the successors of the Apostles, tracing their authority and descent in an unbroken line of ordination to the Apostles. ”

“ But bishops do not possess that three-fold Apostolic power of which I spoke in the beginning of this chapter. The power of bishops only extends to their own dioceses, but that of the Apostles to all nations throughout the whole world.
Andrew his brother. Mark places James and John before Andrew, making him the fourth. Luke does the same in Acts i., 13, but in his Gospel he places him before them as Matthew does. These variations in the order of the names is to show that the Apostles are all equal in dignity and office. ”

“ In the apostolic age a body of elders or bishops and a body of deacons in each church guided its affairs, while the members took an active part in the choice of their officers, and in the general direction of ecclesiastical proceedings. In the second century, when we get a distinct view of the churches after the obscure interval that follows the age of the apostles, we find that over the elders is a bishop, whose office grows in importance as the churches become larger, as the need of more compact organization is felt, and as the clergy become more and more distinct from the laity. ”

“ You travel throughout all the earth and mingle with the various sects who claim to be the descendants of the Apostles, and you will look in vain for any claims to such authority. But come among the Latter-day Saints, who claim to be the original Church restored to the earth again, who claim to have the authority of the Apostleship—the same Apostleship that was exercised by Peter, James, John and the other Apostles, and you will find the authority to bind and loose on earth and it will be bound or loosed in heaven, claimed and exercised in their midst. ”

“ The tradition of the Apostles, made known in all the world, may be clearly discerned in every Church, by those who are willing to behold things as they are; nay, and we are able to enumerate those whom the Apostles ordained to be Bishops in the several Churches, along with their successors, even down to our time, none of whom ever taught or imagined any such doctrine as the heretics, in their frenzy, maintain. ”

“ If the Apostles by virtue of the commission of Jesus Christ were the perpetual pastors of the Church, and enjoy the perpetual presence of Jesus Christ to the end of time, the Apostolic office is by its own nature perpetual in the Church, and the original Apostles have been succeeded by others. ”

“ Since the Apostolic age seventeen centuries have rolled away— exactly eighteen hundred years have elapsed since the delivery of Christ's recorded promise; and, blessed be God, the Church is with us still. Amid all the political storms and vicissitudes, amid all the religious errors and corruptions which have chequered, during that long period, the world's eventful history, a regular unbroken succession has preserved among us ministers of God, whose authority to confer the gifts of His Spirit is derived originally from the laying on of the hands of the Apostles themselves. ”

“ To it, under God, all things are subservient in righteousness, whether in heaven, earth, or hell. God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is at the head of all genuine priesthood. But as it is His will that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father, Jesus now stands accredited as the Apostle and High Priest of our profession. Subordinate priests in the same apostolic order of the Son of God, are such as he has put in his church. These are called apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, &c. ”

“ You, therefore, O bishops, are to your people priests and Levites, ministering to the holy tabernacle, the holy Catholic Church; who stand at the altar of the Lord your God, and offer to Him reasonable and unbloody sacrifices through Jesus the great High Priest. You are to the laity prophets, rulers, governors, and kings; the mediators between God and His faithful people, who receive and declare His word, well acquainted with the Scriptures. Ye are the voice of God, and witnesses of His will, who bear the sins of all, and intercede for all ”

“ Origen, in the preface to his work De Principiis, states the principle of the Apostolate in the Church in the following pregnant terms: “There being many who fancy that they think the things of Christ, and some of them think differently from those who have gone before, let there be preserved the ecclesiastical teaching which, transmitted by the order of succession from the Apostles, remains even to the present day in the churches: that alone is to be believed to be truth which in nothing differs from the ecclesiastical and apostolical tradition.” ”

“ For no one will disregard our admonitions if he believes that the decrees of the pope have the same authority as the words of the apostle himself. For if our Lord commanded the apostles out of reverence for the seat of Moses to observe the sayings of the scribes and Pharisees who occupied that seat, then surely the faithful ought to receive with all reverence the apostolic and evangelical doctrine through those who are chosen to the ministry of preaching. ”

“ Likewise all bishops of Christ's church, who follow Christ in their lives, they are true vicars of the apostles and they are not pope or cardinals. Therefore, other true successors of the apostles can be found and given besides the pope and the cardinals. ”

“ After the death of the apostles came what may be called the age of the apostolic fathers; men who, like Ignatius, Polycarp, and others whose names have not come down to us, had been the disciples of the apostles. ”

“ Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."—Matthew 28:19,20. Were these sayings to us in this generation or were they to the apostles only? No doubt they were to the Apostles, and to none else. All will admit that the Apostolic church has fled into the wilderness, and if so, has their authority not fled with them?
Where shall we go to get authority to proclaim the gospel? one would readily exclaim go to God, but here is a difficulty, God does not reveal himself to us. ”

“ And as we are not bound to follow any apostle, except in so far as he follows Jesus Christ, so it is evident by the limitation laid down by the apostle that we are bound to obey no prelate who has lived since the apostles, except as he commands or counsels Christ's counsels or commands. ”

“ The apostolic ministry divides itself broadly into the general and the local. There are 'ministers' or 'stewards' who are officers of the church catholic and have a general commission. Such general commission belonged, of course, to the apostles, though mutual delimitations were arranged among themselves and though St. James, who ranked with the apostles, was settled at Jerusalem. It belonged also, more or less, to 'evangelists' and other 'apostolic men,' who, however, might be temporarily located in particular churches and districts, like Timothy in Ephesus, and Titus in Crete. ”

“ But enough has surely been said to admonish men against that easy and off-hand way of getting rid of those texts which imply high apostolic power, by saying, that such passages only suit the primitive days and the Apostles’ own ministry. ”

“ The Catholic Church alone is truly apostolic, not only in the continual preservation of the sacred doctrine delivered to her by the apostles, which, by the very rule of her faith, can never be altered, but also in the constant uninterrupted succession of lawful pastors, with all the sacred powers of the priesthood and mission derived from the same source. ”

“ IRENÆUS, L. C. “The Apostolic Faith, manifested to the whole world, they, who would behold truth, may see in every Church ; and we can enumerate those Bishops who were appointed by the Apostles and their successors, down to ourselves; none of whom taught, or even knew, the wild opinions of these men (heretics) . Had the Apostles really possessed any secret doctrines, which the perfect only were to hear, surely they would have communicated them to those to whom they entrusted their Churches. ”

“ If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? &c. Also the apostle not only distinguisheth the ministers of the church in general from the rest of the members, but also from themselves; as naming them distinctly and separately, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, &c. ”

“ No one contends that each bishop when consecrated succeeds to all the privileges and powers of one of the apostles. The bishops, then, not having them in the beginning when consecrated by the apostles, were distinct from the apostles, the apostolic college remaining. ”

“ The whole is put forth as substantially the apostolic teaching (Didachē) on the subjects in question. This is probably a bona fide claim. It expresses the feeling common to the Apostolic Fathers and general in the sub-apostolic age, at any rate in regions where apostles had once laboured, that local tradition, as held by the recognized church leaders, did but continue apostolic doctrine and practice. Into later developments of this feeling an increasing element of illusion entered, and all other written embodiments of it known to us take the form of literary fictions, more or less bold. ”

“ The choir-screen terminated in pulpits at either side, and here again the Apostles stood in solemn guardianship on its broad parapet—but emblems, rather; of the stony rigidity of doctrines which have been shaped by the minds of men from some little phase of truth, than of that glowing, spiritualized, human sympathy which, as the soul of man grows upward into comprehension, is the apostle of an ever widening truth. ”

“ The apostles always represent themselves as appointed witnesses of the life, sufferings, and resurrection of Christ; but, seem not to have arrogated any dominion over the faith of their fellow christians. ”

“ The preaching of the Word is an external instrument of faith and regeneration, and the proper effect of it is to declare or signify. The apostles at Jerusalem acknowledged Paul to be an apostle because he had the gifts of an apostle, and because his ministry was powerful among the Gentiles. As all minsters in their places are pillars, they are hereby admonished to be constant in the truth against all enemies whatsoever. As ministers are pillars, we are taught to cleave to them and their ministry at all times—in life and death.—Perkins. ”