Among the various puzzling questions that concern the organization of the local churches, Dr. Witherow threads his safe way with his usual judiciousness and sound exegetical tact. The nature of the eldership as an undifferentiated ruling-teaching office, the nature of the diaconate as essentially an office of service rather than of “ministry” in its higher sense, the nature of the local presbytery and its functions, the ground and mode of association of the Churches (one of the best chapters), are all judiciously investigated. The only criticism of any moment which we could bring against the findings of this whole half of the volume, would be that the nature of the work of the apostles and the relation to them of their travelling companions do not seem to be exactly realized. Paul was not only a divinely appointed and divinely inspired missionary, he was a travelling missionary-society, and his companions were his helpers in this work. 

In 1889, Thomas Witherow, a Presbyterian minister in Ireland, published, The Form of the Christian Temple: Being a Treatise on the Constitution of the New Testament Church, to promote and defend Presbyterianism as the divinely ordained polity (jure divino) taught in the New Testament. Witherow’s preface expressed his purpose.
The main design of the following treatise is to bring distinctly under the eye of the inquirer those passages of the Holy Scriptures, which are supposed to bear directly or indirectly on the subject of Church Polity; to find out the principles or facts which these passages underlie; and to combine such facts and principles, with the view of ascertaining whether they do, or do not, contain the outlines of a form of Church government.
In the review of Witherow’s book by B. B. Warfield that follows this introduction there are a few things to notice. Warfield readily defended Bishop of Durham Joseph B. Lightfoot (1828-1889) who evaluated the early Greek epistles of Ignatius to be authentic while Witherow questioned them. Warfield maintained great interest in patristics and New Testament studies after leaving Western Seminary even though his work at Princeton was in polemic theology. He said Lightfoot was “the greatest Patristic scholar of the England of our generation,” and in his later years, said Warfield, Lightfoot defended the apostolicity of presbyterianism (TP&RR, 1891, 2:8, 692). Warfield wrote very little about church polity, so his comments in this review are helpful. In the case of graduated levels of church courts (sessions, presbyteries, synods, and assemblies) he thought it was inappropriate to appeal to the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:2-35).
Let us confess that the New Testament gives us no example of other than congregational presbyteries; and rest our higher courts on the legitimate application in their formation of the same principle of association which was divinely enacted in the congregational government.
Warfield agreed with Witherow’s comment on page 187.
Association, whether of Churches or of rulers, is a Scriptural principle. The association of elders in the government of a local Church—that is, the congregational presbytery, is a divine institution; the association of the rulers of different congregations for managing matters in common—that is, the district presbytery, is simply a matter of agreement and consent, but is the outcome of a principle that has received divine sanction again and again.
With authority from the lower to the higher judicatory, congregation to presbytery, and then to the assembly. Does this make Witherow and Warfield grassroots Presbyterians?
Barry Waugh

The Form of the Christian Temple: Being a Treatise on the Constitution of the New Testament Church. By Thomas Witherow, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Church History in Magee College, Londonderry. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; New York: Scribner & Welford, 1889. Pp. xii., 468. 8vo.
We welcome this valuable treatise the more heartily that we fear there is a tendency among us to undervalue the study of Church polity. It may serve to remind us, in the wise words of its author (p. vii.), “that Church polity is an important portion of Christianity.” “Its main principles,” he justly continues, “are divinely revealed; its design is to conserve and to perpetuate truth, as well as to secure decency and order in worship, in instruction, and in administration; while it is often on the side of Church government, and generally under cover of indistinct and uncertain notions regarding it, that minute changes have crept into the Church which have in the course of centuries blossomed out into serious error.” Led by so just a conception of its importance, he has made a careful study of the constitution of the New Testament Church, the conclusion of which may be expressed in these words (although they are not put forward as such): “Presbyterianism has the true bishop, the true episcopal ordination, the true Apostolic Succession, the true commission, and the true ministry” (p. 386).
The volume is divided into two very different parts. The first half is a stringently inductive examination of the New Testament passages bearing on the organization of the Church, with the intention and effect of discovering exactly what the form of the New Testament Church was. Here the controversial element is relegated to the background, although a hint of it may obtrude itself in an occasional bit of dry humor (pp. 119, 167, 168, 196) or in an occasional intrusion into the inductive process of minor items of a more modern flavor. How easy it is to introduce into our speech, regarding the institutions of the first century, traits and forms of statement drawn from our present habits or training, Dr. Witherow illustrates by a quotation from the Tracts for the Times (p. 111, note). How hard it is wholly to avoid it, he illustrates by an occasional slip of his own. Examples are the repeated assertion (e.g., p. 18) that Paul was not appointed apostle until after the death of James of Zebedee; the statement that lay prophets were allowed only “occasionally” to address the Church (p. 34); the assumption that Timothy’s work in Ephesus was “exceptional” (pp. 38, 40). These are, however, rare motes on the surface of a generally successful stream of pure induction.
In the second half of the book the controversial element comes prominently forward, although everywhere kept within due bounds by Dr. Witherow’s unfailing exegetical insight and sober historical sense. Here we have not so much a historical study of the origin of the human additions to the temple, as a polemic examination of the asserted divine sanction for the chief ecclesiastical growths of later times—the priesthood, penance, prelacy, apostolical succession, and the papacy. In the multitude of details which are here brought forward, it is not to be expected that all the opinions expressed will meet universal acceptance—especially when they concern points of confessed difficulty.
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This is the work of God—that you believe in Christ Jesus. We freely choose to believe only because God has changed our nature by regeneration—new creation—such that our desires are now inclined toward God instead of toward sin. 

It is quite common for both Christians and non-Christians to point out their free will. But how free are we? Are we free to do anything? Why don’t believers use their free will to freely choose never to sin again? Why does no one do that? We do have free will—no disagreement here—but maybe it’s not that simple.
After explaining to Timothy how to teach and correct opponents, Paul then explains how God works:

God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (2 Tim. 25-26)

Paul encourages Timothy by reminding him that he cannot convince a person into the kingdom of God. Before God acts, a person is held captive by the devil, and being held captive a person cannot, of his own free will, free himself from the snare of the devil by deciding for himself what is true. Like Timothy, we are to be kind teachers who correct with gentleness, remembering that it is God who may grant repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.
But what about free will?
Some Christians believe God only made it possible for humans to be saved—it’s up to us, exercising our free will, to choose the offered salvation; then God will regenerate us. Others believe humans are so blind, deaf, spiritually dead, and enslaved to sin that they are unable to turn to Christ Jesus unless God first regenerates them—God takes the initiative and a person freely responds.
There is disagreement, but part of the problem may be oversimplification—a tendency to believe there are only two alternatives—we are either completely free or we are completely determined. But what does Scripture teach us? Perhaps we need to go a little bit deeper into the nature of our choices—addressing both what we freely will and why we freely will as we do.
What is free will?
The will is the faculty of a person’s mind involved in choosing what a person desires. The human will is free in that it chooses voluntarily and is undetermined by anything other than itself.
Do humans have free will?
Yes, humans after the fall of Adam still have natural liberty, meaning they are not forced to choose either good or evil. Humans have the power of self-decision according to what pleases them, what they desire.
In other words, humans freely choose what they desire—their will is not forced by anything outside of themselves—what they most desire is what they freely choose. Consider for example, James 1:14 which speaks of how a person’s own desires affect his or her choices of will.
Does humanity’s fall into sin affect free will?
Sinful humans still retain their free will—they still freely choose according to what they desire, according to their sinful nature.
Scripture teaches us that the nature of fallen humans is that they are spiritually dead and incapable of any spiritual good toward salvation. Paul writes in Romans 8:7-8 that the carnal mind is hostile to God. The word of God does not say that the carnal mind is passive but rather that sinful unconverted persons have an active hostility (enmity) toward God.
Ephesians 2:1-3 (see also Col. 2:13) teaches that fallen humans are dead in their sin, carrying out the desires (i.e., will) of body and mind. They are by nature children of wrath. Elsewhere Scripture describes humanity’s condition as spiritual blindness and deafness (see Deut. 29:4; Matt. 13:13; John 12:40; Acts 28:26; 2 Cor. 4:4). God also describes the nature of fallen humans as being in slavery to sin and corruption (Rom. 6:17; Titus 3:3; 2 Pet. 2:19).
The unregenerate set their minds on fleshly things.
Returning to Romans 8, Paul writes that those who are in the flesh—those not regenerated by the Holy Spirit to be a new spiritual creature (see John 3:3; 2 Cor. 5:17; Tit. 3:5)—do not set their minds on spiritual things, but only on fleshly things. As a result, they have no ability to please God (Rom. 8:5-8). There are no righteous humans, there is no one who understands, and there is no one who seeks for God. No one does good—there is no fear of God in their eyes (Rom. 3:10-18 quoting Psalms 5, 14, 36, 53, 140; Isa. 59:7).
So what do sinful, unregenerate, unconverted, human beings desire—what do they freely will?
The unregenerate use their free will to choose what they desire: to sin.
Prior to the flood, God saw that every intention of the thoughts of a person’s heart was only evil continually (Gen. 6:5). Long after the flood the psalmist points out there are none who do good (Ps. 14). Isaiah 59 teaches how the sinful think only of iniquity. The heart of fallen humans is deceitful above everything (Jer. 17:5) The spiritually dead yield to the passions of the flesh and the sinful desires of the body (Eph. 2:1-3).
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Throughout Kings, various prophets counsel, instruct, warn, and foretell the future to remind the Israelite rulers (and the reader) that God’s Word was the supreme authority and power in Israel. Many named and unnamed prophets play significant roles in the narrative, but Elijah and Elisha take center stage. They were raised up by God during the reign of Ahab’s house (Israel’s deepest period of apostasy) to call the Northern Kingdom in particular to return to God and His word. 

1. The book of Kings was written during the exile to explain why Israel and Judah were in exile.
In the Hebrew Bible, the book of Kings—understood as 1 and 2 Kings together—is the last book in the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings). These books narrate Israel’s history from her arrival in the land God had promised to her removal from the land during the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. The earliest that Kings could have been composed in its final form was after King Jehoiachin’s release from prison in 561 BC (2 Kings 25:27), and because it does not mention the return from exile, it likely was written at some point in the second half of the Babylonian exile.
Kings is theological history, explaining why God gave His people over to foreign nations. The answer is oft repeated: from the time of the division of the kingdom after Solomon’s reign, God’s people and their rulers “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins that they committed” (1 Kings 14:22). Even when a godly king occasionally arose, his descendants continued the spiritual decline of Israel/Judah. The extended theological commentary in 2 Kings 17:7–23 summarizes the message of the whole book: “And this [exile] occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced” (vv. 7–8).
There are no explicit promises or prophecies of any return from exile in Kings, yet Jehoiachin’s release at the end of the book foreshadows a happy ending. As we read in Deuteronomy 4:25–31 and throughout the writing prophets, that ending would indeed come, ultimately in the arrival of great David’s greater Son, Jesus Christ, who sits eternally on David’s throne.
2. Kings isn’t just about kings; it’s also about prophets.
The rise of Israel’s monarchy brought in its wake the flowering of the prophetic office, and for good reason: rebellious kings needed to hear God’s words of warning, and faithful kings needed to hear God’s words of encouragement.
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