Let us consider what is the meaning of clergy. It is in our day, and has been for many generations,
the word which specially marks out a class distinguished from the "laity," and distinguished by
being occupied with sacred things, and having a place of privilege in connection with these things
which the laity have not. It means a spiritual caste, or class_a set of people having officially a
right to leadership in spiritual things; a nearness to God derived from official place, not spiritual
power. In contradistinction to these, the rest of Christians are but the laity, the seculars,
necessarily put back into more or less of the old distance which the cross of Christ has taken
away.

In contrast to this system of clergy and laity, let me briefly state the Scripture doctrine concerning
Christian ministry_it is a very simple one. The assembly of God is Christ’s body; all the members
are members of Christ. There is no other membership in Scripture than this_the membership of
Christ’s body to which all true Christians belong:not many bodies of Christ but one body; not
churches, but one Church.

There is of course a different place for each member of the body by the very fact that he is such.
All members have not the same office:there is the eye, the ear, and so on, but they are all
necessary, and all necessarily ministering in some way or sense to one another. Every member
has its place, not merely locally, and for the benefit of certain other members, but for the benefit
of the whole body. Each member has its gift, as the apostle teaches distinctly. "For as we have
many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we, being many, are
one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according
to the grace that is given to us," etc. (Rom. 12:4-6).

Whence does the gospel of God, for instance, derive its authority and power? From any sanction
of men? any human credentials of any kind? or from its own inherent power? I dare maintain that
the common attempt to authenticate the messenger takes away from instead of adding to the power
of the Word. God’s Word must be received as such:he that receives it sets to his seal that God
is true. Its ability to meet the needs of heart and conscience is derived from the fact that it is
"God’s good news," Who knows perfectly what man’s need is, and has provided for it
accordingly. He who has felt its power knows well from Whom it comes. The work and witness
of the Spirit of God in the soul need no witness of man to supplement them.

Even the Lord’s appeal in His own case was to the truth He uttered:"If I say the truth, why do
ye not believe Me?" When He stood forth in the Jewish synagogue, or elsewhere, He was but in
men’s eyes a poor carpenter’s son, accredited by no school or group of men at all. All the weight
of authority was ever against Him. He disclaimed even "receiving testimony from men." God’s
Word alone should speak for God. "My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me." And how did
it approve itself? By the fact of its being truth. "If I say the truth, why do you not believe Me?"
It was the truth that was to make its way with the true. "He that will do God’s will shall know of
the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself."

In like manner, in the gifts given to the members of Christ’s body "the manifestation of the Spirit

is given to every man to profit withal" (1 Cor. 12:7). By the very fact that he has the gift, he is
responsible to use it_responsible to Him who has not given it in vain. In the gift itself lies the
ability to minister, and title too; for I am bound to help and serve with what I have. And if souls
are helped, they need scarcely ask if I had commission to do it.

This is the simple character of ministry_the service of love according to the ability which God
gives, mutual service of each to the other, without jostling or exclusion of one another. Each gift
is thrown into the common treasury, and all are the richer by it. God’s blessing and the
manifestation of the Spirit are all the sanction needed.

Was there no ordained class at all, then? There were, without doubt, in the primitive Church, two
classes of officials regularly appointed or ordained. The deacons were those who had charge of
the funds for the poor and other purposes. They were chosen by the saints first for this place of
trust in their behalf, and then appointed authoritatively by apostles, either directly or through an
apostolic delegate. Elders were a second class_elderly men as the word means _who were
appointed in the local assemblies as "bishops" or "overseers" to keep watch of the state of the
assembly. Their work was to "oversee," and although for that purpose their being "apt to teach"
was a much-needed qualification in view of errors already rife, yet no one could suppose that
teaching was confined to those who were "elders."

Whatever gifts they had, they used, as all did, and thus the apostle directs:"Let the elders that rule
well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the Word and doctrine" (1
Tim. 5:17). But they might rule, and rule well, without this.

The meaning of their ordination was just this, that here it was not a question of "gift," but of
authority. It was a question of title to take up and look into often difficult and delicate matters
among people all too likely to be in no state to submit to what was merely spiritual. The
ministration of gift was another thing, and free, under God, to all.

Let us consider now the distinction between priesthood and ministry:Ministry (in the sense we
are now considering) is to men; priesthood is to God. The minister brings God’s message to the
people_he speaks for Him to them; the priest goes to God for the people_he speaks in the
reverse way, for them to Him. It is surely easy to distinguish these two attitudes.

Praise and thanksgiving are spiritual "sacrifices"; they are part of our offering as priests. Put a
special class into a place where regularly and officially they act thus for the rest, they are at once
in the rank of an intermediate priesthood_mediators with God for those who are not so near.

The Lord’s supper is the most prominent and complete public expression of Christian thankfulness
and adoration. But what Protestant minister does not look upon it as his official right to administer
this? What "layman" would not shrink from the profanation of administering it? And this is one
of the terrible evils of the system, that the mass of Christian people are thus distinctly secularized.
Occupied with worldly things, they cannot be expected to be spiritually what the clergy are. And
to this state they are given over, as it were. They are released from spiritual occupations to which
they are not equal and to which others have given themselves entirely.

But this evidently goes much further. "The priest’s lips should keep knowledge." How should the
laity, who have become that by abdicating their priesthood, retain the knowledge belonging to a
priestly class? The unspirituality to which they have given themselves up pursues them here.
Those in the class of clergy have become the authorized interpreters of the Word, for how should
the secular man know so well what Scripture means? Thus the clergy have become spiritual eyes
and ears and mouth for the laity, and are on their way to becoming the whole body too.

But it suits people well. Do not mistake me as if I meant that this has all come about because men
have assumed the class of clergy. It includes that, no doubt; but never could this miserable and
unscriptural distinction of clergy and laity have arisen so rapidly and so universally as it did if
everywhere it had not been found well adapted to the tastes of those whom it really displaced and
degraded. Not alone in Israel, but in Christendom also, has it been fulfilled:"The prophets
prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means, and My people love to have it so!" (Jer.
5:31). Alas! they did, and they do. As spiritual decline sets in, the heart that is turning to the
world barters readily_like Esau_its spiritual birthright for a mess of pottage. It exchanges
thankfully its need for caring too much for spiritual things, with those who will accept the
responsibility of this. Worldliness is well covered with a layman’s cloak; and as the Church at
large dropped out of first love (as it did rapidly, allowing the world to come in through the loosely
guarded gates), it became more and more impossible for the rank and file of Christendom to take
the blessed and wonderful place which belonged to Christians. The step taken downward, instead
of being retrieved, only made succeeding steps easier; until, in less than three hundred years from
the beginning, a Jewish priesthood and a ritualistic religion were everywhere installed.

In conclusion, beloved brethren, it is of immense importance that all His people, however diverse
their places in the body of Christ may be, should realize that they are all as really ministers as
they are all priests. We need to recognize that every Christian has spiritual duties flowing from
spiritual relationship to every other Christian. It is the privilege of each one to contribute his share
to the common treasury of gift with which Christ has endowed His Church. He who does not
contribute is actually holding back what is his debt to the whole family of God. No possessor of
one talent is entitled to wrap it in a napkin upon that account:it would be mere unfaithfulness and
unbelief.

"It is more blessed to give than to receive." Brethren in Christ, when shall we awake to the reality
of our Lord’s words there? Ours is a never-failing spring of perpetual joy and blessing, to which
if we but come when we thirst, "out of [our bellies] shall flow rivers of living water." The spring
is not limited by the vessel which receives it:it is divine, and yet ours fully_fully as can be! Oh
to know more this abundance, and the responsibility of the possession of it, in a dry and weary
scene like this! Oh to know better the infinite grace which has taken us up as channels of its
outflow among men! When shall we rise up to the sense of our common dignity_to the sweet
reality of fellowship with Him who "came not to be ministered unto but to minister"? Oh for
unofficial ministry_the overflowing of full hearts into empty ones, so many as there are around
us! How we should rejoice, in this present scene, to find perpetual opportunity to show the
competency of Christ’s fullness to meet and minister to every form of want, misery, and sin.