pastoral charges, to supply churches with pastors, to direct candidates for the ministry to their studies, to see that discipline is enforced, to "preach, and to oversee the temporal and spiritual affairs of the Church"-such are the chief functions of this archpresbyter in American Christianity.

5. THE SCRIPTURAL PRESBYTERATE OF TO-DAY.

At the present time the scriptural form of the presbyterate is best represented, as might be imagined, by the Christian communions of the Presbyterian order-such as the Church of Scotland, the Reformed Churches of the Continent and of America, and the Presbyterian Churches of Great Britain and America. These churches have divided the presbyterate into two officesnamely, that of both teaching and ruling and that of ruling only. The former may be classed as a clerical and the latter as a lay office. So there are ministers, or "teaching elders," and lay rulers, or "ruling elders." And the government of the Church rests wholly in the hands of these two classes of presbyters.

This system dates from the time of the Reformation, and bears the stamp of that prince of system-builders, John Calvin. For Calvin's genius was notably the genius of order. Was he needed by his age? could it be said to him, as Ignatius wrote to Polycarp, "The times call for thee as do pilots for the winds?" Most unhappy have been the effects of that compact system of doctrine in which he gave logical form to his conception of theism and the evangelic faith. For "the mistakes of the great are calamities." But in the one respect with which we are concerned in the present study, Calvin was both greatly needed and greatly successful. He actualized the best thought of his age and of subsequent generations, as an organizer, no less truly than did Martin Luther as a witness for religious thinking, experience, and freedom.

For the Reformation was not a wild rebellion. Had it been such, it would soon have broken itself to pieces and been swept away. There was no lawless element in it. "Under law to Christ" was its principle of procedure. The Reformers would

do nothing against the truth of authority but everything for that truth. They realized that to cast off the yoke of Rome, intolerable as that yoke had been, was a perilous undertaking. For might it not make an opportunity for license, born of self-will, to simulate liberty, the child of law?

It actually did make such an opportunity. Through its abuse a way was opened for the wildest vagaries of the mind as well as the sanest convictions and the deepest intuitions, for the baser as well as the nobler passions. The new liberty was made an "occasion to the flesh" as well as an open door to service in love. There were outbreaks of both social and religious fanaticism, agitators who were agitators only, "Zwickau prophets," the War of the Nobles, the War of the Peasants, a throwing off of the restraints of law both human and divine. What wonder if it should awaken doubt and fear in the order-loving heart? "The aspect of Germany," said Luther, "has never been more pitiful than it is now."

But the point to be accentuated is that this violation of law and order was no proper part of the reformatory movement. It went dead against the will and teaching of the great Protestant leaders. It was such a turbulence as may be expected to attend for a time the breaking up of an old order and the attempt to introduce and maintain a new. Let England in the reign of Edward VI. and America after the War of the Revolution bear witness. There will be temporary evil when one's house is torn down before the constructive work can be done upon the house that is to take its place. As promptly as possible, therefore, the Reformation must indeed re-form the Church, the house of religion. It must give it, among other things, a symmetrical, strong, and rightly constituted government. And this the presbyteral system promised.

Calvin could bear no haziness in his thinking-as unlike as possible the group of theologians described by Milton, who reasoned and argued on foreknowledge, fate, and the like high themes,

And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.

Calvin, even as a young and immature theologian, "found an end." He mapped out the whole course of his thought. Hence we do not find him indulging in mere verbalisms, nor making an idol of phrases, nor satisfying himself with throwing out vague and symbolic words at his objects of research. All must be exact, well adjusted, unified-every nebula resolved into its constituent stars or else disregarded. Thus the Visible Catholic Church became to Calvin a clearly defined conception, and he would have it organized after a clearly defined pattern. He made much of church membership and discipline. Outside the Church there was no salvation;' inside there must be systematic supervision and enforced authority. The true Church might be known by its scriptural "notes," and though here and there "enveloped in some cloud of ignorance," and liable to err on nonessential points, was infallible "in things essential to salvation."* When it spoke there was nothing left for its member but to obey. As to the weight of emphasis upon this obedience, there is scarcely an appreciable difference between Calvin and Rome. A very narrow margin, it must be admitted, was left for "the freedom of the Christian man."

The model for his system of government, considered simply as an authoritative presbyteral supervision, Calvin found in the Scriptures. The additions thereto, with the animating "aristocratic" or legal spirit, were his own. Though Calvin would have added nothing except under what he fully believed to be due warrant of the Old or the New Testament. He would have died first.

Thus, through Calvin and his followers, there has been restored to the Church a ruling presbyterate, which, tenacious of its fundamental principles yet free to modify its forms, has witnessed well through generations and centuries for righteousness, order, and good government.

Presbytery is reverent, loyal, self-possessed. It would bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, the one King in Zion, whose

'Institutes, IV., i. 4.

*Institutes, IV., viii. 13.

unshared dominion endures forever. It would oppose the least encroachment of sacerdotal delusion and tyranny-though not successful at all times in keeping itself clear of tyrannical exactions. Through its representative courts it would guard the rights of the people, while at the same time avoiding the uncertainties of a pure democracy.

It has sometimes made alliance with the State-as, for instance, in Switzerland and Scotland-which can be but poorly reconciled with its continual confession of Christ's sole headship of the Church; but the direction of its influence upon civil government, on both sides of the Atlantic, has been uniformity toward authority without tyranny and liberty without license. The roll of its witnesses for religious freedom is long and brilliant.

In almost all the other Protestant Christian communions, the presbyterate is a purely clerical office. The lay element in the Church's government is introduced in other forms than that of the "ruling elder." There is only the "teaching elder," who, however, as in Presbyterianism, is also a ruler-the fully authorized preacher in the pulpit, administrator of the sacraments, pastor of the people, presiding officer of the church.

VIII.

UNITY: THE BISHOP-EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF HIS OFFICE.

IN the presbyter we have met with the universal representative of church order. We are now to study one of the implications of this order—namely, unity, as exemplified in the office which most perfectly sets it forth.

In fact, order of all kinds implies unity, and is in its ultimate idea personal. Things that are arranged-be they bricks in a wall, dishes on a dinner table, or words in a sentence-are arranged according to some principle and by some person. They must take their places under this unitary control, else there will be confusion and conflict.

The striving of all philosophic minds is toward the One. All the way along, from the dawn of speculative inquiry to the present time, this has been the line of interpretative thought concerning the universe. Its outcome is theistic. Only in the Eternal Reason can the restless human reason find rest.

If, then, God is one and has made all things to have oneness in himself, it is not difficult to understand why man, in his multifarious doings, should, consciously or unconsciously, be guided by a similar principle of unity. For is he not made in God's image, and intended to do the works of his Father? It was the perfect Son, in whom the Father was well pleased, who said: "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing, for the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth." But something of what he himself doeth the heavenly Father shows to every man. "Be ye imitators of God as beloved children." To do this voluntarily and in the highest things is human perfection; for it is to "walk in love, even as Christ also loved." To do it uncon