Mr
Wm Federer gives us more evidence for why the ‘American Experiment’ is headed
for disaster one day: It is based on the
false notion that the Church is a democracy.
Here are a couple of quotes from an essay of his on this subject:
Rev. Thomas Hooker
gave a sermon at the colony's capitol city of Hartford on May 31, 1638, where
he championed universal Christian suffrage (voting), stating:
"The foundation
of authority is laid firstly in the free consent of the people."
. . .
In the assertion of
the Rev. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a
sermon before the General Court that:
'The foundation of
authority is laid in the free consent of the people ... The choice of public
magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance.'
This doctrine found
wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy who later made up the
Congregational Church ..."
Coolidge continued:
"The great
apostle of this movement was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts ... writing
in 1710 ... 'Democracy is Christ's government in church and state.'
The
foundation of authority is not ‘laid firstly in the free consent of the
people’; it is laid firstly in the authority of God. And God always distributes authority, whether
to angels or to men, through hierarchy - that is, from the top down.
On
the angelic hierarchy:
Saint Cyril of
Jerusalem says the following: "Imagine how numerous is the Roman
population; imagine how numerous are other barbarian tribes existing today, and
how many of them have died during one hundred years; imagine how many have been
buried during a thousand years; imagine all the people, beginning with Adam, to
the present day; there is a great multitude of them. But it is yet small in
comparison with the angels, of which there are many more! They are the ninety
and nine sheep of the parable, but mankind is only one sheep. For according to
the extent of universal space, we must reckon the number of its inhabitants.
The whole earth inhabited by us is like a point in the midst of heaven and yet
contains so great a multitude; what a multitude must the heaven which encircles
it contain! And must not the heaven of heavens contain unimaginable numbers? If
it is written that `a thousand thousands ministered to Him; and ten thousand
times ten thousand stood before Him,' it is only because the prophet could not
express a greater number."
In view of such a
multitude of angels, it is natural to suppose that in the world of angels, just
as in the material world, there are various degrees of perfection and,
therefore, various stages or hierarchical degrees of the heavenly powers. Thus,
the word of God calls some Angels and some Archangels (1 Thess.
4:16; Jude verse 9).
The Orthodox Church,
guided by the views of the ancient writers of the Church and Church Fathers,
divides the world of the angels into nine choirs or ranks, and these nine into
three hierarchies, each hierarchy having three ranks. The first hierarchy
consists of those spirits who are closest to God, namely, the Thrones, Cherubim
and Seraphim. Within the second, the middle hierarchy, are the Authorities,
Dominions and Powers. In the third, which is closer to us, are the Angels,
Archangels and Principalities. Thus, the existence of the Angels and Archangels
is witnessed by almost every page in the Holy Scriptures. The books of the
prophets mention the Cherubim and Seraphim. Cherubim means to be near;
hence it means the near ones; Seraphim means fiery, or filled
with fire. The names of the other angelic ranks are mentioned by the
Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians, saying that Christ is in the
heavens "far above any Principality, and Authority, and Power, and
Dominion" (Ephesians 1:21).
Besides these angelic
ranks, Saint Paul teaches in his epistles to the Colossians that the Son of God
created everything visible and invisible,"Thrones, Dominions, or
Principalities, or Powers" (Colossians 1:16). Consequently, when we
join the Thrones to those four about which the Apostle speaks to the Ephesians,
that is, the Principalities, Authorities, Powers and Dominions, there are five
ranks; and when to these we add Angels, Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, then
there are nine angelic ranks.
In addition, some
Church Fathers expressed the opinion that dividing the angels into nine choirs
touched only upon those names that are revealed by the word of God but in no
way encompasses other names and choirs of angels that have not been as yet
revealed to us. For example, the Apostle John the Theologian mentions in the
book of Revelation mysterious creatures and the seven spirits by the throne of
God: "Grace be to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is
coming, and from the seven spirits who are before His throne"
(Apocalypse 1:4). The Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians writes that
Christ resides in heaven far above the enumerated angels and "every
name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come"
(1:21). Thus he hints that in Heaven there are other spiritual creatures whose
names are yet not revealed to mankind.
--Bishop Alexander
Mileant, http://orthochristian.com/42954.html
About
hierarchy in the Church, the Holy Apostle Paul writes in his Letter to the
Hebrews (13:17),
[17] Obey them
that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your
souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not
with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.
--https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=5277078
(bolding added)
Later,
in the early second century, the Holy Martyr Ignatius (+107), Bishop of
Antioch, the disciple of the Holy Apostle John the Evangelist and Theologian,
would write in his letter to the Trallians while he was on his way to be
martyred at Rome,
For, since ye are
subject to the bishop as to Jesus Christ, ye appear to me to live not after the
manner of men, but according to Jesus Christ, who died for us, in order, by
believing in His death, ye may escape from death. It is therefore necessary
that, as ye indeed do, so without the bishop ye should do nothing, but should
also be subject to the presbytery, as to the apostle of Jesus Christ, who is
our hope, in whom, if we live, we shall [at last] be found. It is fitting also
that the deacons, as being [the ministers] of the mysteries of Jesus Christ,
should in every respect be pleasing to all. For they are not ministers of meat
and drink, but servants of the Church of God. They are bound, therefore, to avoid
all grounds of accusation [against them], as they would do fire.
In like manner, let
all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as
Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters as the sanhedrin
of God, and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these, there is no Church.
It
is well to point out here that all three levels of the ministry in the Church
(bishops, priests, and deacons) have their origin with the Holy Apostles, not the
democratic decision of the laity, and that all consecrations of new members to
these offices are by the successors to the Apostles, the bishops. (For an expanded look at this particular
subject, we recommend the section ‘The Church Hierarchy’ from Fr Michael
Pomazansky’s Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0824/_P1X.HTM)
Even
after the resurrection, there will still be a hierarchy in the Church:
[39] All flesh is
not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of
beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.
[40] There are also
celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is
one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
[41] There is one
glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the
stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.
[42] So also is the
resurrection of the dead.
--I Cor. 15:39-42, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=5072031
It
would be strange indeed for the Holy Trinity, after thus ordering things
hierarchically in the angelic realm and in the Church, to allow the government
of mankind for his other affairs to be founded and conducted on the opposite
principal, the democratic. But that is
not what we find. For ensample:
[13] Submit
yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the
king, as supreme;
[14] Or unto
governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers,
and for the praise of them that do well.
[15] For so is the
will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of
foolish men:
--I Peter 2:13-15, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=5332719
The
principal that Mr Federer lauds is a dangerous one:
A "Republic" is
where the people are king, ruling through their servants, called
representatives.
It
leads in the end to all kinds of chaos.
There is one father in a family, one king over a country, one priest
ruling in a parish church, one bishop over a diocese: a reflection of the rule of the one God over
His creation. To say that every man is a
king undermines all governing authority in society, whether the state or the
Church or anywhere else. This limitless
authority of the individual to govern himself is what is at the root of
abortion rights, LGBT rights, the gangster/thug culture of the inner city, etc. Mr Federer and his likeminded friends in the
post-Orthodox West therefore face a conundrum of their own making: They want to hold fast to their republican/representative
democratic ideology, but they do not want to live with the consequences that
inevitably flow from it. This is as
non-sensical as asking the night not to follow the day.
All
told, the only thing exceptional about Yankee America is her Gnostic rejection
of God-ordained authority. This is why New
England is a religious wasteland today, and why the South, which has retained
some waning respect for hierarchy and tradition despite the repeated attacks of
New England upon her culture, still has something resembling Christianity alive
within her today. Thus, to the South and
to all who want a Christian future, we would strongly caution that in general they not
follow the example of Puritan New England.
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England,
South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð,
unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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