Modern prelates do not claim to possess any one of these gifts. Nor do they pretend to the credentials which authenticated the mission of the Apostles of Christ. They claim no immediate com- mission ; no independent knowledge derived from immediate reve- lation ; no personal infallibility; no vision of Christ; and no gift of miracles. That is, they claim the authority of the office, but not its reality. It is very plain, therefore, that they are not apostles. They cannot have the authority of the office without having the gifts on which that authority was founded, and from which it emanated. If a man cannot be a prophet without the gift of proph- ecy ; or a miracle-worker without the gift of miracles ; or have the gift of tongues without the ability to speak other languages than his own ; no man can rightfully claim to be an apostle without possessing the gifts which made the original Apostles what they were. The deaf and dumb might as reasonably claim to have the gift of tongues. The world has never seen or suffered a greater imposture than that weak, ignorant, and often immoral men, should claim the same authority to teach and rule that belonged to men to whom the truth was supernaturally revealed, who were confess- edly inftxUible in its communication, and to whose divine mission God himself bore witness in signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost. The office of the Apostles as de- scribed in the New Testament, was, therefore, from its nature in- capable of being transmitted, and has not in fact been perpetuated.
There is no command given in the New Testament to keep up the succession of the Apostles. When Judas had apostatized, Peter said his place must be filled, but the selection was to be confined to those, as he said, " which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John unto that same day that He was taken up from us." (Acts i. 21, 22.) The reason assigned for this appointment was not that the Apostleship might be continued, but that the man selected might be " a witness with us of his resurrection." " And they gave forth their lots ; and the lot fell upon Matthias ; and he was numbered with the eleven Apostles." And that was the end. "We never hear of Matthias afterward. It is very doubtful whether this appointment of Matthias had any validity. What is here re-