[Here we have another non-published article by Samuel Trott, in response to Daniel Parker - ed]
Brother Beebe: I will not notice Brother Parker's reply to the communication of mine, on the subject of the washing of feet, published in the Signs, Vol. 8, No.3. I will in the 1st place, acknowledge my obligation to brother Parker, for correcting one mistake I had fallen in two, in supposing that the instance of our Lord's washing the feet of his disciples was after the Passover supper. From a further examination of the scriptures on the point I am convinced that they do not warrant the conclusion I have heretofore drawn on that point; but from some expression used it is probable, that the meal they were eating at the time the Lord washed his disciples feet, was an ordinary meal, their dinner if you please, for the name used and the customs of that day suit that idea. Hence in verse one of John 8 it reads, “now before the feast of the Passover.”
Again, in verse 29 I find this expression, “by those things that we have need of against a feast.” I know not what feast this could be except in the Passover feast. This view of the subject strips the affair of that appearance of a religious rite, in connection with the lord's supper, which it otherwise would have carried with it, had it not been, as noticed in my former communication, that Paul, in stating the manner in which he had delivered the institution to the church at Corinth, omitted altogether to mention the washing of feet, First Corinthians 11.23-27. This is the only error in my former views of the subject of which I am convinced by Brother Parker's reply; and this new view, as just notice, supports rather than makes against those views. It may be for the want of the Spirit's teaching on the point, that I do not see with Brother Parker and others, on the point. But so it is, that although he brings to his aid a powerful imagination, yet his arguments appear to me destitute of scriptural support, and much confused. For instance, he takes the position that the washing of feet is not an ordinance, but an example. So far he is supported by the declaration of the master, “for I have given you an example that you should do as I have done unto you,” verse 15.
Yet Brother Parker goes on to say afterward, “We will agree that every external act of Christian duty is figurative, expressive of, and pointing to a reality.” He here uses the word duty instead of worship, and yet what he says of the act as being figurative, can only imply, in their right observance, and embracing by faith of the reality soul represented. In accordance with this, he goes on to point out the several things prefigured by the several acts connected with the saviors washing his disciple's feet, according to his view of them. The supper from which Jesus arose, represents the spiritual food of the gospel, the supper of the lamb; he is rising from it, his resurrection, and that of his saints to a state of glory; he is laying aside his garments, shows he's laying aside his heavenly garments, coming into the world. Strange that a figure designed to represent such great leading truths of the gospel, should point to the resurrection of Christ as preceding he's coming into the world! But this incongruity I will pass. He goes on to say, that the towel with which he girded himself represented the humanity which he took; the pouring water into a basin, was a figure of the streams of that river which make glad the city of God, pouring into the covenant of grace, the plan of salvation. This may be the order of things as represented in the scripture; but I should sooner have looked for the streams of that river, of which the psalmist speaks, to be running from the covenant of grace, than to be running into it.
He goes on to say, that the act of stripping and washing the feet of the disciples and wiping them with the towel, shows the condescending love and attention of Christ to the meanest member of his body. Very strange indeed, that a practice taught by Christ to be observed by his disciples in the letter of it, and designed to represent their faith in such important gospel truths, should not be a gospel ordinance, or a constituted part of gospel worship! And if a constituted part of worship, I cannot conceive why it should not be observed by the church in church relations. Strange that an institution that belongs to the Kingdom of Christ, should not be observed by that Kingdom in its visible form. But where does Brother Parker get his authority for asserting that this act of our Lord was designed figuratively to represent these things? Did the decision of the apostle Lord's judges, show us what is represented by baptism and the Lord's supper, but they have given us no decision concerning the washing of feet. Neither can Brother Parker show us any authority from the New Testament from that acts being figurative of those things. And without I have no right to receive his declaration, neither have you, brother Crafton, though he may think that as one of the Peters, the Holy Ghost has so taught him.
I will now refer to the remarks of Brother Parker upon the position I took in my communication: “Nothing is binding upon the churches to be observed as ordinances but what the enthroned judges, the apostles established in the churches by their acts and writings.” On this point, I do not think Brother Parker has exercised all that candor that might have been used with equal advantage to his cause if a good one. Some of these remarks I shall notice, others I may let pass. His first exception to my position is, that it gives the apostles something like legislative power. Not in the least. That Christ appointed to his 12 apostles a Kingdom and gave them peculiar authority in his Kingdom, is to me evident from the scriptures; and that their decisions on the order and doctrine they established, are of equal authority with his commands, must be manifest, because they in these things work through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost infallible.
But that they in themselves had the power to originate a single law cannot be inferred from what I said. Neither is my position liable to the inference he draws, the day by not sanctioning what he commanded might contradict it. If left to their own fallibility this might be; but there was a safeguard against this being the case, in anything to be delivered to the Church of; the Holy Ghost was as faithful to lead them unto all truth, as Christ was to publish the decree. The grounds on which my position rests in connection with the scriptures which I firmly quoted in support thereof, are these:
1st. That the order of a gospel church in its true former pattern, could not be fully shown while the law was enforced, and Christ was a minister of the circumcision and his disciples, bound to observe the mosaic ritual, as was the case until Christ had taken the handwriting of ordinances out of the way, nailing it to his cross. Consequently, after his resurrection, he was to enter into his glory, instead of staying on earth to preach his gospel and plant churches, this authority was given peculiarly to the 12 to establish the pattern of a gospel church in its liberty, form, ordinances, and worship. Hence it is to them, in their acts and writings, that we are to look for such a pattern; And theirs is the only infallible and standing pattern. They were in this only establishing by their decisions the instructions which he gave them while he was with them for 40 days after his resurrection, speaking to them of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God; and that which he afterward imparted to them through the Holy Ghost.
2nd. As this authority was given a loan to the 12, they're being but 12 Thrones mentioned, all that appertains to a gospel church, in its form, ordinances, they must have bound by their decisions and left on record, or we in after ages should not have had a perfect pattern to be governed by. This view of the subject completely refutes the Catholic notions of a succession of Apostolic authority; as well as the modern anti-Christian notion, that the regulation of forms, and order, is left to the church to be adapted to times, and circumstances. And yet Brother Parker, somehow strangely inferred that the view which I took of this authority, as being rested in the apostles, was such as gave rise to popery. If Brother Parker's views be correct that the apostles only exercised their offices as judges in such cases of difficulty as occasionally arose in the churches, and at only such of their decisions as were given in writing because they were distant from the church, had been transmitted down to us, there would evidently be as much occasion for a succession of judges to meet the cases of difficulty in succeeding churches, as it was for them in the primitive church. Hence the pretensions of the popes to possess a succession of Apostolic authority would appear plausible.
Again, Brother Parker represents that according to my view of the subject, we should have no right to claim either doctrine or order in the church, except what little we might gather from the acts of the apostles. If he means by this expression the book called The Acts of the Apostles, he has much mistaken me. If I had not referred to their writings as well as acts, there might have been more excuses for this mistake. But it must appear to manifest on the candid examination of my communication that I considered the apostle's decisions given in their writings as well as in their acts given to us by Luke. As the decision of the apostles being unimportant in reference to doctrine, As I once mentioned doctrine in my former communication, though it is not particularly connected with the subject under consideration, I will further remark that although the apostles said no other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come; yet but little of the doctrine of Christ, more particularly as contained even in the Psalms and in the prophets, should we have understood in its application to Christ and the gospel church, had we not the decision of the apostles in the New Testament showing the application.
It is true, that the Holy Ghost might lead our minds into such doctrine, but without the infallible assurance that it was the teaching of the Holy Ghost, we could not have the same confidence in the truth of the application as now. Neither could we have had any certainty that the various parts of the ceremonial law had a typical reference to gospel things, or what the doctrine contained in them were it not for the decisions contained in a New Testament on this point. These decisions and special applications by the apostles are very brief, yet sufficient to show that they were shadows of good things to come. I know of no doctrine contained in the Old Testament which is not confirmed and made more clear in its application, by what is contained in the new. Hence the doctrine that characterized the gospel church at Jerusalem is called emphatically the apostle's doctrine, and the church is represented as having a joint foundation, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, acts 2.42; Ephesians 2.20. The doctrine on which the church is built is thus witnessed by two witnesses. If Brother Parker will examine this point in its general bearing instead of looking at it only in its reference to foot washing, he will I think not find me so far wrong.
In reference to ordinances, my position was that there must be both the command of the king going before and the decision of the apostles establishing the fact of such command being recognized by them as requiring the observance of it as a positive institution and showing the order of its observance. The command of the king is necessary in such institutions because they are to be observed not only as expressions of our faith in him as Darren revealed, but also as declarations of our willing subjection to him as king of Zion. And the decision of the judges is also important thus showing what our Lord's directions were to be observed as positive institutions, and what was designed merely as general instruction.
Now, if, I should advance the sentiment, that it was necessary as preparatory to eating the Lord's supper, that two disciples should be sent to prepare a Passover supper, that a man bearing a pitcher of water must meet them and show them a large upper room furnish, as our Lord had directed at the time he instituted the ordinance of bread and wine, what proof would brother Parker bring to refute the sentiment, but the fact that the apostles did so to understand that transaction as evinced by their entire silence on the point of reference to the order established in the gospel church? There is just as much authority for all of this as there is for the supper being observed in an upper room, and at night, and by giving loose to the imagination I might bring quite as much of gospel illustration from this man with the picture of water, the large upper room furnished, as brother Parker has brought from the Lord to washing and disciples feet; but still it would be only illustration, there would be no authority to warrant the conclusion that this was designed to represent those things. Now, on the same ground as Brother Parker would reject my notion of this previous order and preparation to partaking of the supper I reject his sentiment that the washing of feet should be observed, in the letter of it, as a religious rite; because there is no record of any such custom in any of the Apostolic churches.
We either have or have not a perfect pattern of a gospel church after the day of Pentecost as brought out in full form in liberty from under the yoke of the Mosaic covenant. If we have not such a pattern, we are thrown upon the mercy of every man for the form and order of a gospel church, who may hunt out from all the things which Jesus did and said while tabernacling in the flesh, and serving under the law, something new to be observed as a religious right by the disciples.
That our Lord's transaction in the thing under consideration, as in everything else he did and said, was designed for instruction, I have before admitted; and more than this, that it was done for an example. The inquiry is, what does his example in this thing teach? The answer to me is plain, that he thereby has taught us to condescend to the lowest offices and station to serve our brethren; that as our Lord laid aside his garments, so we should in effect disrobe ourselves of any superiority of station or of circumstances which we might be placed, that we might be serviceable to our brethren as occasion may require.
And that as our Lord girded himself with a towel, thus assuming the garb of one that serves (Luke 12.37; 17.8) and washed the disciple's feet, and thereby performed one of the lowest offices, so we should be willing to take the lowest station in the church and among our brethren, and to perform any service however menial that their good or comfort may require, and thus manifest that we feel such nearness to them as being fellow members of the same body. And such I really understand to be the plain import of our Lord's remark, “for I have given you an example that you should do as I have done unto you.” An example is not so much to giving a form of doing a thing, as it is the indication or illustration of a general principle. Now, the position of Brother Parker on this point is, as he admits it to be not an ordinance, but an example, that we should after the pattern of our Lord, continue as a stated practice to give to one another the example, inform, instead of coming directly to the practice of the principle exemplified by him.
As to the idea which I advanced in my former communication, that this act of our Lord was designed especially to teach his disciples to wash the gospel feet or Christian walk of their brethren, I confess I have no direct scripture authority for it other than influential; I will not, therefore, insist on that idea, further than it is included in the general principle taught by the example of Christ, that we should be ready to serve our brethren and do them good on every occasion for it. And in this view of it, I think the example of our Lord beautifully illustrates the proper course toward our brethren. It teaches that we ought, on all occasions of seeking to wash the gospel feet of our brethren, to be girded with the towel, that when the admonition, or course of discipline, when such has to be resorted to, has the effect to produce proper repentance and fruits meat therefore, we should be prepared and careful to wipe away the remembrance of the error of sin of our brother, so that it may not afterward come in to mar our fellowship toward him, or interrupt our brotherly intercourse with him. Were the general principle thus taught by the example, carried out in our conduct towards our brethren, it would, I think, have quite as great a tendency to produce a proper state of feeling, and proper action, in our churches, as would the mere imitating the form of giving the example by our Lord. And such a state of feeling and of action, our churches certainly greatly need at this time.
In conclusion, I will say that I desire to feel thankful to God for any confidence Brother Parker may have in me as a watchman on the walls of Zion; And I would assure Brother Parker that if I were convinced of the correctness of his views, and that I have been in an error on this point, I would as cheerfully go with him in the practice of washing feet and recall what I have written to the contrary, as I now go for this different view of the subject. But if I am in an error on this point, i can assure him, that it is hidden from me.
May the Lord in his great mercy correct whatever error either Brother Parker or myself, or any of our brethren have fallen into; and lead us to greater conformity to the New Testament, both in spirit and letter, in doctrine and in practice.
S. Trott
Centerville, Fairfax County, Virginia, September 14, 1841
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