hension in things difficult, he must be a stranger to himself, one time or other." And so far from being dogmatic in his own conclusions, he gives as a further reason for publishing his work, "That I might occasion men eminently gifted, to make further search and to dig deeper, that if there be any vein of reason which lies yet lower, it might be brought to light, and we profess and promise not only a ready ear to hear it, but a heart willing to welcome it." When the churches of Connecticut met in council at Saybrook in 1708, to agree upon a common confession of faith, they began their work with the declaration that "the Supreme Judge by whom all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit, into which Scripture so delivered, our faith is finally resolved." And they exhort the churches to apply the rule of Holy Scripture to all the articles of their own confession, saying, "You ought to account nothing ancient that will not stand by this rule, nor anything new that will."

Thus the Congregational polity sends its ministry untrammeled to the word of God as their authority in theology. Surely the theology the churches need, the theology that these times and all times demand, is a biblical theology; and where shall this be learned but at the Bible? Revelation being wholly of God, is complete and infallible. But theology is man's speculative and practical interpretation of Revelation. To say that this was fixed for all time by Calvin or Edwards, so that we may accept their theology as God's revelation, is to ascribe infallibility to the human mind and to uninspired speech. These great theologians demanded no such homage to their opinions. Says Calvin, "We shall never be able to discriminate between the numerous councils, which dissent from and contradict each other, unless we examine them all by the word of God, which is the universal standard for men and angels. Whenever a decree of any council is brought forward, I would wish, first, that a diligent inquiry should be made, at what time, for what cause, and with what design it was held, and what kind of persons were present; secondly,

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that the subject discussed in it should be examined by the standard of the Scripture; and this in such a manner that the determination should have its weight, and be considered as a precedent, or case formerly decided, but that it should not preclude the examination which I have mentioned. I sincerely wish," he continues, "that every person would observe the method recommended by Augustine, in his third book against Maximinus. For, with a view to silence the contentions of that heretic respecting the decrees of councils, he says, 'I ought not to object to you the council of Nice, nor ought you to object to me the council of Ariminum, to preclude each other's judgment by a previous decision. I am not bound by the authority of the latter; nor you by that of the former. Let cause contend with cause, and argument with argument, on the ground of Scriptural authorities, which exclusively belong to neither party, but are common to both. The consequence of such a mode of proceeding would be, that councils would retain all the majesty which is due to them, while at the same time the Scripture would hold the preeminence, so that everything would be subject to it standards.'" What a rebuke to the servile copying of names and authorities is this vindication of theological independence by the sages of Geneva and Hippo.*

The first condition of Biblical study is that we call no man master. If thus freed from bondage to man, we come to the word of God with that reverent, earnest, patient, candid, persevering spirit with which Bacon entered upon the study of nature, we may surely claim the promise that the Author of inspiration will guide us into truth. "If there be any man who has it at heart," says Bacon, "not merely to take his stand on what has already been discovered, but to profit by that and to go on to something beyond; not to anger an adversary by disputing, but to conquer nature by working;-not to opine probably and prettily, but to know certainly and demonstrably;-let such as being true sons of nature join themselves to us; so that, leaving the porch of nature, which endless mul

* Inst. 4: 9. 8.

titudes have so long trod, we may at last open a way to the inner courts."*

Will any say that the analogy of discovery fails, because truth in nature is hidden, but in the Bible is revealed? True, God is revealed in the Scriptures, in his personality, and his attributes. But what an ocean of speculative inquiry lies before us in that profoundest problem of Being—the Trinity in Unity. Every cable of logic that man has sought to stretch across that ocean of Being, that he might gain some signal from its distant shore, lies broken and silent in its depths. We accept the fact as God has revealed it, but resting in no human formula, study the mystery, watching for light. The system of Redemption is revealed in terms simple to a child; yet must he be "strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man," who would "comprehend the breadth, and length, and depth, and hight, and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." Paul wrote according to the wisdom given him from above; yet in his epistles are "some things hard to be understood," which no theology has fully elucidated, and for which we must "reserve the liberty of further future light." Philology and metaphysics are growing sciences; and there may yet be an interpretation of the fifth chapter of Romans, which shall make men neither demons in durance here for a previous fall; nor physical monstrosities of creative power; nor guilty particles in some mystic entity called a sinful nature; nor an organic humanity developed downwards by the virus of the first Adam, and then upwards, by the grace of the second; nor having, by virtue of an arbitrary substitution, a logical title to a salvation as universal as the fall. If ever we shall master the whole Biblical theology of the fall and the redemption of mankind, it must be through "further future light" from the word of God. And that system of polity which leads the mind to the investigation of divine truth, untrammeled by human creeds and authorities, gives the largest hope of such a theology.

II. The fact that the Congregational polity makes the ministry simply a body of Teachers, tends to throw them upon the

* Inst. Mag. Præf. ad P. ii.

diligent study of the Bible as their main resource for influence and usefulness. This polity clothes the minister with no factitious dignity, with no venerable associations of a privileged class, with no official sanctity. It gives him few accessories of form, of dress, or tradition, to supplement his power or to conceal the want of it. He comes before the people unrobed, unconsecrated-as a minister of the Word; not to perform a ritual, nor to represent an order in the church, but to interest their minds in and by the truth. Therefore he must make that truth his study and his life, or he fails as a minister. He has nothing to draw upon in his official character but the word of God, and truth in physical nature and in the history and philosophy of man, as illustrating that word. Use what we will of outward accessories-of music, of architecture, of ritual, of social or esthetic appliances to build up a church,-so long as it remains an independent church, its minister can live only by Biblical truth. The best church architecture is that which makes the way into the pulpit lie through the study. The unction and validity of the ministration, so far as external agents are concerned, must come not from the chrism of holy oil and the manipulation of hereditary fingers, but from a well thumbed Bible. The minister must fight Satan, as did Luther -not with priestly incantations, but with his inkstand.

III. By this polity, the pastor of each church is directly responsible to the intelligent Christian experience and the conscientious judgment of the members of that church; and thus is preaching to those who are students of God's word, and his constituted judges by that word. He is not imposed upon them by the patron of the parish, who has the living in his gift, nor by a conference of bishops or other ecclesiastics, rotating the ministry at their pleasure; he is not set over them as their official superior by some authority superior both to him and to them; but he is chosen by them, as their teacher and guide in the truth. His responsibility to them, to their sanctified intelligence, to their enlightened consciences-the responsibility of rightly dividing the word of truth to those who know what truth is, and when they receive a share of it; the responsibility not of performing a ritual with good taste and order, or of administering ordinances with rubrical validity, but of edi

fying the body of Christ, of perfecting the saints, and of commending himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God-this is the highest form of responsibility under which a minister can be brought to his fellow disciples. Schools, sects, creeds, systems, doctors, synods, councils, all are nothing in comparison with these living souls whom Christ has given to the pastor, with the injunction, "As thou lovest me, feed my sheep-feed my lambs." These are the jury before whom the doctrine of the minister must be tried, with the Bible as the judge. The attempt to put off upon such hearers declamation for doctrine, flash jewelry for the pure gold and diamonds of God's word, is like using counterfeit money to pay pew-rent and benevolent subscriptions. The stigma is even worse than the crime.

But will not this very fact that he is amenable to the people for the substance of his teachings, lead the minister to study to please men and to withhold unwelcome truth? Human weakness, indeed, suggests that temptation, and no system can provide effectually against a depraved heart. "Wo to the people whose pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the Lord." But the theory is, that the minister is a sanctified person, called of God's spirit to his work, and that the church is a communion of sanctified persons, who wish to know God's truth and to grow in grace. If the minister, himself, is a Christian, he will desire to know God's truth, and to speak that alone. If his church are Christians, they will desire that their minister should speak the whole truth of God, and will be dissatisfied if he does not speak it. Under the sense of this responsibility, the pastor must ever be a faithful student of God's Word.

IV. By this system the minister, untrammeled by human authority, is made to realize his direct responsibility to God, for his teachings. His is a regulated liberty of inquiry and opinion; and the Regulator in the system is this immediate consciousness of the great Taskmaster's eye. "As we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the Gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts." Human authority imposed upon the mind in its in