Relation of Church Officers

“If this principle be correct, we may lay down the following general rule: that no person by virtue of a lower office can fill a higher one; but any one filling a higher office, can by virtue of that office, act in any of the lower. Thus a deacon can not by virtue of his deaconship, act as an elder, nor an elder as an evangelist, nor an evangelist as an apostle; but an apostle can act as evangelist, elder, or deacon; an evangelist, as an elder or deacon; and an elder as a deacon. We do not here speak of apostles and evangelists as officers of individual churches; for this is not the position they occupy, their calling making it necessary for them to move in a wider sphere; namely, to have, if apostles, the oversight of the churches. and if evangelists to labor to raise up churches in new fields. These, in our judgment, are the only officers qualified to organize churches.COOD 130.2