Required reading
Discussions (Vol 2) by Robert L. Dabney (Available from Amazon or free here) - Conclude 'Prelacy a blunder'.
My summary
This week Dabney finishes dismissing the prelacy.
His second point establishes that the instances of the apostles' conferring supernatural gifts by laying on their hands have nothing to do with the substance of ordination to ordinary church offices.
Dabney basically demonstrates from Scripture the temporary nature of the apostolic office.
What grabbed me
I liked Dabney's point that the prelacy is claiming to offer sacrifices, which is far beyond the claims of the apostles: 'This figment of " apostolic succession " is destroyed again by showing that the thing has no existence on earth to which they claim to succeed. When we ask the early prelatic church, the Latin, the Greek, and the Anglican Catholic : To what have your prelates succeeded ? The universal answer is : "To priest hood and sacrifice"; to the mediating functions of a hierarchy. The succession is that, or it is nothing. But since Christ's ascension there is neither priest nor sacrifice on earth. The true apostles were not priests in the prelatic sense, and had no atoning sacrifice. There is no altar nor priest on earth.'
To offer sacrifices demonstrates that they are apostates, not apostles.
Next week's reading
Commence 'Walnut Street Church Decision' by reading up to the paragraph commencing 'II. We now consider the equity of the case.'
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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