the normal development, in practice, of the other. Admit the prerogatives thus ascribed to the ministry, and it at once becomes important, that some be set apart as the official conservators and dispensers of the powers and grace thus possessed; men who shall be authorized to take charge of their proper distribution and transmission, for the present edification of the Church, and its perpetuation in after time. Precisely such are the distinguishing characteristics and functions of diocesan bishops; whose office as preachers of the word, is entirely subordinate and secondary to that more important jurisdiction which they exercise in the ordination of ministers, and the confirmation of catechumens. In these rites they, by the imposition of hands, assume to bestow upon the one and the other that mysterious and inappreciable gift of the Holy Ghost, which, whilst it neither works faith nor any grace in the heart, nor loveliness in the life, yet entitles the one to arrogate to himself, and those who have been similarly ordained, the supreme and exclusive title to dispense the privileges and blessings of God's covenant of mercy to a lost world; and makes the other a child of God, and heir of heaven. All this-although the one may be a Simon Magus in heart, and the other a worker of iniquity in his life.

The Constitution of the Methodist Episcopal Church, exhibits a modified form of hierarchy singularly anomalous in all its aspects. Its author, John Wesley; a professed believer in the primitive purity of the ministry, yet an adherant of one prelatic church, and founder of another. Citing his faith in the original equality of the ministry, as a justification of his own position, when in the act of trampling that equality under foot, by the assumption to himself of apostolical authority, in the ordination of prelates to rule in a foreign church, and the erection of a system of hierarchy, as unmitigated in its usurpation over popular rights, as that of the English establishment itself. Nor is the system any less remarkable in its structure than its origin. Here is a ministry which does not pretend to derive its authority by immediate commission from heaven, which cannot claim apostolic succession, and which is, therefore, shut up to the alternative of admitting, that any prerogatives they may possess must be conveyed to them through the mediation of the Church-the body of believers. Yet, notwithstanding, from the day of their commission by Wesley, to the present time, they have held the reins then seized, without pretending to secure from the people, in any form, their sanction to to the original investiture, or the subsequent use; or admitting them to any share of authority, or any right of interposition in the exercise of the powers thus acquired. Here are prelates confessing that the system is not derived from the word of God; and

a ministry, whose warrant is in a ministeral succession which ter minates in the person of a disorderly presbyter, who violated the obligations of his own ministry, and cast indignity on the authorities and order of his own church in originating theirs. In short, the system is one whose only pretence of excuse is necessity; whose justification was opportunity; and whose only present vindication is the consent of the people, obscurely indicated in their unresisting acquiescence. Incapable of vindication in argument, its security is silence.

On the opposite extreme of opinions on this subject, Independency secures, indeed, the liberties of the people of God against the domination of usurping officers, but it is at the expense of the existence of the Church itself. It is dissolved, and out of the elements are created a multitude of petty democracies, each congregation being erected into a sect, responsible to no common authority and bound to the rest by no common organization. "Each congregation, assembly, or brotherhood of professing Christians meeting for religious purposes in one place, is a complete Church, receiving from Christ the right to appoint its own officers, to discharge the duties of worship, to observe the instituted sacraments, and to exercise discipline upon its own members."*

If it be true that each particular congregation is thus complete in itself, and possessed of such privileges and independence as are here claimed, it is evident that they are thereby involved in an imperative obligation to maintain in full integrity the invaluable trust thus committed to them by the Lord Jesus Christ. As to them belongs the privilege, so on them alone rests the obligation and responsibility, of designating officers, of directing worship, and of exercising discipline within their own assemblies. Faithfulness to Christ forbids that they should transfer any of these prerogatives to others, or permit their integrity to be impaired, by allowing any measure of interference, any the least weight of obligation, to extraneous influences and sister organizations. Whilst thus sedulous in guarding their own rights, they are on the other hand bound by a reciprocal obligation as carefully to respect those of sister congregations, abstaining from any attempt to influence the choice of officers, the exercises of worship, or the formularies of doctrine, or to interfere in any way beyond the limits of their own fold.

A modified form of this system is displayed in Congregationalism, which does not essentially differ from it in principle. It is an attempt to innoculate independency with the efficiency and ex

* Upham's Ratio Disciplinæ, or Constitution of the Congregational Churches. p. 44.

pansiveness of Presbyterianism, by a partial adoption of its forms and modes of action. The result, so far as it differs from strict independency, is a congeries of compromises and expedients; not rising to the dignity of a system; reducable to no ultimate principles; recognizing no law, but the necessities of the occasion; and exhibiting no uniformity in its results, as developed in the constitutions and proceedings of the multiplied Councils, Unions, Conventions, Conferences, Associations and Consociations, Anabaptist and Pædo-baptist, to which it has given existence.

Although the Congregational system departs so far from pure Independency, as to admit of the organization of councils and synods, both occasional and stated; yet it is held as a cardinal principle, that particular churches retain the right of examining their decisions by the light of reason and Scripture. "If they find them agreeable to the scriptures, and satisfactory to their consciences, they are to be received; but if otherwise, they may be rejected." The synods of these churches are not like those of other churches; for they have no weapons but what are spiritual. They pretend to, nor desire any power that is judicial. If they can but instruct and persuade, they gain their end. But when they have done all, the churches are still free to refuse or accept their advice.'+' The particular worshipping assembly is, therefore, the tribunal of the last resort; in fact, the only authoritative body known to the system. In the varying phases of Congregationalism, we do indeed sometimes find features which suggest the authoritative supervision and control of Presbyterian synods. Yet, however intimately the churches may be associated in mutual confidence and fellowship, they still remain mere conferences of independent sovereignties. Each is entitled, in the last resort, by the fundamental principles of the system, to do what may seem good in its own eyes, irrespective of the opinions or expostulations of the rest. This renders such organizations altogether inadequate to resist the incursions of error. Strictly interpreting their principles, the churches have no right to go behind their mutual profession of a common faith; or inquire whether any of their number may not have departed from the truth of the Gospel. This would be assuming a right to sit in judgment one upon another. Necessity has, indeed, induced the partial abandonment of this principle, by the adoption of systems of association, cemented by rules of discipline. But the feeble influence thus exerted, has only partially protected the

Upham, p. 205.

Samuel Mather, in Upham, p. 205.

bodies thus organized from the continual and desolating inroads. of error in every form. Arminian, Pelagian, Antinomian, Arian, and Socinian heresies, have alternatively swept over their fairest fields, until scarcely a remnant is left to lift up a standard for the primitive faith, which was inscribed by their fathers in the Savoy confession of 1658, the Boston confession of 1680, and the London Baptist confession of 1689, identical as were each of these in doctrines, almost in terms, with the confession of the Westminster Assembly. Nor is it unworthy of special note, that the Pelagian tendencies, which have been so actively developed in the Congregational churches of this country within the last half century, have proceeded at an equal pace with a corresponding disposition to cast off the stricter regimen of Presbyterio-congregationalism, and to recur to the principles of pure Independency.

An equally weighty objection to the Independent polity, occurs in the fact that it is entirely deficient in any provision for sending abroad the Gospel, and evangelizing the destitute, and the heathen world. On the contrary, its principles present great obstacles in the way of such attempts. It hence happens that whenever churches thus organized, have attempted to do anything for the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom, it has been through organizations extraneous to the churches, abnormal to their system, and which, at every point of contact with the churches, are sustained and borne forward in violation of the fundamental principles of their polity. The mission of a minister of the Gospel to labour among the barbarians of Rarotonga, implies, on the part of the Church which sends him forth, authority competent to the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in that distant field. The moment a church in Boston or Plymouth attempts to designate a church officer to exercise his official functions in a foreign field, the idea of authority limited to the bounds of its own assembly is abandoned. A right is thus assumed of effectually interposing as to the mode of worship, the qualification of members, and the exercise of discipline in assemblies separated from her, perhaps by the diameter of the globe. This, too, not in its proper form by the assembled Church, but by an individual designated to act for her in this behalf. The sons of the pilgrims, as well as many of our Baptist brethren, are entitled to praise in all the churches for their noble exertions on behalf of the heathen world. But the manner in which they are compelled to act in every branch of evangelic effort is, of itself, an overwhelming argument against this system of polity. Take the example of the American Board-a society originating in the casual association of a few individuals, impelled, indeed, by noble purposes, but in whose designation the churches as such had no

more to do, than in the organization of a bank or an insurance company. Thus independent of the churches in its origin, it is equally so in its perpetuation; being a close corporation with the sole right within itself of electing its own members from time to time, and exercising that right by the election of men who are not officers in any church, and men who never belonged to a Congregational church at all. A society whose powers are derived, not from the churches by any mode of delegation, but from the Legislature of Massachusetts, and defined in a municipal charter. The theory is, that the prerogative of calling men to the ministry belongs exclusively to the several churches, each for itself. The practice is, that the call of the missionaries comes neither from church nor church-court, but from this civil corporation. The theory is, that the ordaining council exercises an authority delegated to it, by the church from which the call proceeds, and in the bosom of which the labors of the minister elect are to be bestowed. The practice is, that the council, when assembled, consists of ministers and messengers from churches, none of which expect to enjoy his stated ministry; who do not pretend to have been called together, or authorized to act by any church which does; who, with one voice, repudiate any right of jurisdiction beyond the bounds of their several churches; and yet, in the teeth of all this, they go forward, and, by the laying on of hands, assume to invest with the Gospel ministry, men whom they design to exercise its functions in foreign lands, and among other people. The doctrine is, that the power of the keys belongs to the body of worshippers in a particular church. practice is, that it is assumed by the missionary, if there be but one, or by the council of the mission in the earlier stages of missionary operations. Subsequently, according as the preferences of the missionaries, or the necessities of their situation have determined, the practice varies between a quasi congregationalism, in which the Church has a nominal share of power, but is held in real subordination to the authority of the general council of the mission; and defectively organized Presbyterianism, exercised by the missionary pastor, with his college of parochial assistants, subordinate to the presbytery of the mission."

The

Thus have the principles of this polity met and withstood the friends of missions in every step of their progress and every department of their operations; and compelled them to seek, in a purely civil corporation, a channel through which to exercise their zeal for a perishing world: and to yield to this body an ecclesiastical jurisdiction over ministers and churches,-the rising temple of God in heathen lands,-as authoritative, and often more direct and effectual, than is ever exerted by the highest court of

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