duty and labor of love to speak the truth concerning my venerable mother, especially as she is so much maligned in our day." Thus is such a one led to profess the faith of his fathers. and to do his little part, under the pressure of their spirit and authority, to transmit it to succeeding generations. A powerful advocate, in its way, is the imagination of the heart.

But the historic papacy calls for support in Scripture, in reason, and in primitive Christian history, with nothing but echo as an answer. Because it has not been through the operation of such forces as Scripture or reason or primitive Christian history, but in defiance of them, that it has grafted its awful weight upon the Church of Christ. By motives and under conditions similar to those through which, during so much of this world's tragic history, political despotism has become a possibility and a fact, must this greatest of spiritual despotisms be explained. Out of priestly assumption, the love of rule, the powerfully suggestive example of political Rome, and a false view of the Church's economy, on the part of the priest, and out of intellectual inertness, spiritual ignorance, weakness of will, and that perverted respect for instituted authority which makes it a substitute for truth and life, on the part of the people, has it arisen and persisted.

V.

THE EPISCOPAL IDEA: SCRIPTURAL, EXPEDIENT -EARLIER FORMS.

Is it inevitable that bishops should put forth unfounded claims to rulership and spiritual power in the Church of God? Can no succession of men be safely charged with so high and responsible an office as the episcopate, and no church with the duty of restraining it within the true and scriptural limitations? Undoubtedly the bestowal of extraordinary authority and opportunity of official influence is attended with extraordinary risk. For the highest points of an organization are those which expose it to the gravest perils: they stand nearest the electric storms. The human body would be less liable to fatal injury if it were organized without a brain. The most hazardous office in a republic is that of president, and in an army that of commanderin-chief. As is the effectiveness of use, so is the destructiveness of abuse.

If, then, in the case of the episcopate, its use be inseparable from the serious abuses by which it has so often been dishonored, if all the efficiency it can add to the Church and all the perils it can forefend are outweighed by the episcopal peril itself, the part of wisdom would doubtless be to do without the office. Better forego its great possible advantages than suffer the equally great perversions to which it is liable.

Happily, however, such is not the alternative. As more than one illustrative example has proved, the idea of episcopal government may be safeguarded against prelatic and hieratic encroachments, and the venerable title of bishop, though "soiled by all ignoble use," may be borne equitably and nobly. The Apostles of Jesus, in their oversight of the churches, may have and do have genuine successors in our own age.'

"When a search is being made for scriptural precedents or hints in favor of episcopacy, the position of the Apostles with reference to deacons and

Let us make note of certain forms in which the idea of a scriptural and expedient episcopate has found historic expres

sion.

1. ORIGIN OF THE EPISCOPATE IN THE EVANGELICAL

LUTHERAN CHURCH.

It was a fundamental principle of the Lutheran Reformation that all ecclesiastical power inheres in local churches, or congre gations. The purpose of a church is to minister the word et God and the sacraments; and any church has the right to elect and ordain its own pastor, who thus becomes its official organ for the accomplishment of this purpose. In brief, it has authority from God to do in its sphere whatever may be done by the universal Church. Ministers and people are in exactly the same sense a priesthood unto God, being higher or lower in office only, not in spiritual power.

Hence no higher ecclesiastical authority than that of the congregation is necessary to ordination to the Christian ministry, “If any pious laymen were banished to a desert," says Luther,' "and having no regularly constituted priest among them, were to agree to choose to that office one of their own number, married or unmarried, this man would be as truly a priest as if he had been consecrated by all the bishops in the world.”

Thus far the organizing principle must be characterized as pure congregationalism. But it was also held that no specific form of organization has been prescribed in the New Testament; that therefore the Christian congregations are not bound to stand independent of one another, but may, if they choose, organize themselves under a common representative government; that

presbyters will not be overlooked by those who are on the watch for intimations of the mind of the Spirit; but to affirm, as Cyprian does, that the Apostles were formally bishops, is to speak without the warrant of Scripture, and in forgetfulness of the essential points of distinction between the Apostolic office and that of a bishop in later times." (Litton, "The Church of Christ," p. 284.)

'In an "Appeal to His Imperial Majesty and to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation," in the year 1520. (D'Aubigné, "History of the Reformation" (1849), Vol. I., pp. 476, 477.)

moreover, as a matter of order, efficiency, and Christian fraternity, they ought to do so.'

Now of the government that arose under the influence of these ideas, one feature was an episcopate. For the Lutheran Reformation was conservative, not revolutionary. Luther would destroy nothing except what was subversive of God's word. Apart from this conservative spirit, indeed, both Luther and Melanchthon were inclined to favor the episcopate as supplying a real need in church government. The three Roman Catholic bishops, therefore, who in Germany embraced the reformed doctrines, were permitted to retain their sees, as spiritual rulers; and evangelical bishops were also appointed—one, Nicolas of Amsdorf, installed by Luther himself, and another, George of Anhalt, by Luther and Melanchthon.

This episcopal office, however, did not prove to be permanent. It was overborne and allowed to lapse, under the ecclesiastical power of the civil rulers, "the episcopate of the prince." And

""As order is necessary to the prosperity of every associate body, and as Jesus Christ has left no entire, specific form of government and discipline for his Church, it is the duty of every individual church to adopt such regulations as appear to them most consistent with the spirit and precepts of the New Testament, and best calculated to subserve the interests of the Church of Christ.

"And as men exercising the right of private judgment agree in the opinion that Christianity requires a social connection among its professors, reason dictates that those holding similar views of faith and practice should associate together; that it is their duty to require for admission to church membership among them, or for induction into the sacred office, and for continuance in either, such terms as they deem most accordant with the precepts and spirit of the Bible.

"Upon the broad basis of these principles was the Evangelical Lutheran Church founded, immediately after the Reformation. Adhering to the same principles, the Church in America is governed by three Judicatories: the Council of each individual church, the District Synods, . . . and one General Synod." (Formula of Government of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Ch. I., sec. 5, 6, 7.)

"Giesler, "Church History," Vol. IV., sec. 46.

"According to Luther, it is the duty of the princes to use their authority in religious matters as well as in all other matters pertaining to the welfare of their subjects. . . . Thus the prince was, by virtue of his position, the general superintendent or bishop in his dominions. And

here is shown the unhappy flaw in the Lutheran church-building. It began with evangelical liberty in both organization and doctrine; but soon degenerated, as to organization, into forms of political expediency; or, as has been said, "it began in ideas and ended in force." Rulers of the State became overseers of the flock of Christ. We are told, indeed, that this was a necessity of the times, to prevent the overthrow of the great Reformer's work by the compact and powerful hierarchy of Rome, with its political allies. Governments were arrayed, with scepter and sword, against the gospel. If then other governments were ready to organize, defend, and maintain it, why not accept their services, even at the cost of giving them authority to rule the organized Christianity which they had saved? Either that or the violent suppression of Protestantism at its very outset-thus it has been argued was the alternative.

But if so, we must believe it a most unhappy necessity under which, in that period of storm and stress, the less of two such evils was chosen. Because, on the one hand, there can be no doubt that the "religious" wars which followed had a most hardening effect upon the mind and spirit of the age; and, on the other, the best that can be hoped for from the rule of the State over the Church is to secure a uniform ecclesiastical condition, to the injury, as the history of Christendom has repeatedly shown, of genuine Christian faith and experience. Conformity will take the place of piety, and confession make light of conviction. Conscience will bow the knee to the Baal of political power. Let Judah, at war with Israel, call for the aid of Assyria, and she may expect to purchase victory at the price of some form of vassalage to her powerful ally.

The main features of the episcopacy, however—those, namely, of ordination, visitation, and general superintendence of the churches have been perpetuated by the Lutheran Church of Germany unto the present time in the office of Superintendent.'

this is the origin of the German State Churches." (Nuelsen, “Luther the Leader," p. 179.)

'The views of the Lutheran theologians with respect to the episcopacy are