_The Necessity of a Church:_ The departure from the form and spirit of church government was no less marked than the moral and spiritual declension among the Christians of the early centuries of the era, or the departure from the true doctrine of Deity. Beyond filling the vacancy in the council of the Twelve Apostles, occasioned by the fall of Judas, there is no clear and satisfactory evidence that other successors of the Apostles were ever chosen, though the fair implication is that the organization of the Church, with Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Seventies, Bishops, Teachers, etc., was to be perpetuated as at first established. At least this organization was given for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, until the saints should come to a unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God;[A] so that the plain inference is that as long as there are saints to be perfected, or edified, or united, or brought to the knowledge of God; as long as there is work for a ministry, or the necessity of a Church, through the agency of which the truth is to be taught to the world, and the lives of those who accept the truth perfected, so long will it be necessary to perpetuate the organization given of God for the achievement of those high purposes. To say that man could devise a better organization for the accomplishment of these several objects would be to challenge the wisdom of God. To say that any of these means provided in the Church organization could be dispensed with, would be to contradict the plain teaching of Scripture, which, in this very connection forbids the eye to say to the hand, I have no need of thee; or the head to the feet, I have no need of you; that is, one officer of the Church may not say to another officer, I have no need of thee.[B] The doctrine of Scripture is that all the officers of the Church, together with their several gifts, are essential to the Church of Christ; essential to its perfection; essential to the performance of the sacred functions assigned to it. Yet it must be conceded that the organization described in the New Testament did not survive the last of the Apostles; or preserve much beyond that time the spirit which the Master impressed upon it.[C] [Footnote A: I Cor. xii; Eph. iv.] [Footnote B: Cor. xii.] [Footnote C: Matt. xx.]