head of the ministry is Christ. If the regimen of the diaconate be not in Christ, but in the popular will, then a factious opposition to the truth of Christ, which would have been latent and powerless for mischief without leaders, finds the means of a triumphant opposition in the organic deformity and weakness which arise from the incorporation of elements which belong to an unscriptural order of church polity. (3.) If the deacons are subject to the same regimen as the overseers, both being subject to Christ the two offices are either independent of each other, or they are correlated. If they are correlated they must be either coördinate in prerogative, or one must be subordinate to the other. There are three hypotheses. (a.) The two offices are mutually independent, or (b.) they are coördinate, or (c.) one is subordinate to the other. (a.) If one it subordinate to the other, then the right of private judgment is alienated from one, and the right of final decision resides in the other. This polity is papal. (b.) If the two offices are coördinate, we have two executive departments in one organization, that possess equal prerogatives, which are independent of each other and are not subordinate one to the other. It is manifest that there is danger according to this theory of misunderstanding and a probability of inharmonious operation. The probability is strengthened if we consider that there is nothing in the New Testament to define the sphere, or fix the prerogatives, or to prescribe the duties which belong to ecclesiastical deacons. Such a system as a system promises nothing but schism and conflict. It contains the elements of antagonistic polities. The necessary complement of au. an ecclesiastical diaconate is episcopal supremacy; episcopal supremacy developed is popery. The diaconate without the primate yields nothing but conflict and disorder. It remains to consider the supposition in which independency is introduced in its plentitude.,

(c) The two offices are perfectly independent of each other, both being subject exclusively to Christ. They possess the same prerogatives, because they are coördinate; for if one was subordinate to the other it would not be independent. We have then for both, the same regimen, the same prerogatives, the same independence, the same grade. There is, then, in reality but one office, though it be held by several persons. Is not this the true theory? Christ is the only true diaconal correlative. His ministers are amenable exclusively to him. There are not two orders in the ministry, but only one. They are all of the same grade, because they all stand in the same relation to him. The affairs of his kingdom are legitimately under the supervision of those only whom the Holy Spirit has made overseers in his churches.

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The correlation of evangelical servitors, as fixed by the authoritative enactment of Jesus Christ, forbids the introduction of orders and grades in the ministry. The law of his kingdom is the reverse of that which governs in worldly polities. In them authority is the highest pinnacle of dignity. But said Jesus, "So shall it not be among you." Greatness consists in humility, not in prerogative. An attempt to attain greatness in any other way reverses the scale and results in a corresponding degradation; for the grade of servitors depends upon who is their lord. Hence to serve Christ by ministering to those that are his, exalts the servitor to honor; to serve any other lord degrades the servitor by bringing him into ignoble bondage. This principle extends to all departments. If a magistrate, for example, consents to become simply the minister of the people, like yielding Pilate, he becomes degraded into their slave; if he act as a minister of God to maintain right he becomes clothed with divine dignity. The introduction of grades and subordinations in the ministry contravenes this positive enactment of Jesus Christ. Be not called Rabbi; neither be ye called masters, for one is your masterChrist, and "all ye are brethren." The introduction of fictitious distinctions and offices necessitates false correlations; and false correlations degrade men into slaves. The subordination of one class of men to the authority of another by an unauthorized ecclesiastical regimen is a deliberate and systematic robbery of Christ. All authority in heaven and in earth belongs to him. His commandments include the sum of all duty. All which is not done from regard to him, is done amiss. Hence respect to authorities and dignities and offices which he has not appointed is giving to another what belongs to him. This is robbery. An ecclesiastical polity which requires deference to fictitious dignities is a systematic robbery of Christ. The members of every church are all commanded' to "know," "esteem," "obey and "submit to" those leaders who speak the word of God. It is manifest that all other leadership is an usurpation and robbery of Jesus Christ. The creation of an unauthorized office in the church tends to depress the general activity of the whole church by beclouding the relations and responsibilities of its members. SERVING is the chief business of the whole fraternity of believers. They are called to serve in imitation of Christ, not to be served. Unless they minister to Christ's representatives who are an hungered, or athirst, or sick, or in prison, he will not own them at all in the day of Judgment. To appoint special individuals to attend officially to what is

1 Hebrews xiii. 7, 17; Thessalonians v. 12.

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2 Olsh p. 124; Matthew xx. 28.

inalienably incumbent on each and every one, is only spreading an ecclesiastical veil over human responsibilities. Serving is an universal duty, which is incumbent on all to the full extent of their several ability. The selection of special helpers, who are not properly official, but incipient and tentative servitors, devolves upon those who are commissioned to select and train the rising ministry.

There are Assyrian representations in bass-relief at Koyunjik of two or three persons in one chariot of war making a joint attack upon their enemies; one drives the horses, one holds a shield, while the third, with a trained hand, hurls missiles with unerring precision upon their enemies. The Christian ministry is properly such a combination of trained skill coöperating in unanimous effort for the dissemination of the faith of Jesus. There is a diversity of gifts in the ministry and a corresponding variety of work to be done. The ministry is properly a board of directors, which has the oversight of all the affairs of the church, spiritual and temporal. An aggressive Christianity invariably develops itself in this form, so far as it is able to resist the pressure of adverse creeds. A plurality of individuals characterizes the ministry of all denominations sometimes in spite of their creeds. An executive board is the characteristic of all religious societies which have attained to any degree of maturity. In all the churches which are described in the New Testament in this particular, there was a plurality of individuals in their eldership. The introduction of different orders in the ministry was the beginning of the corruption of organized Christianity; for it necessitated the introduction of a principle of subordination and diaconal correlation which is essentially papal. It is worthy to observe that wherever the distinction of orders in the ministry is admitted at all, they become, in spite of creeds, like the frogs of Egypt, innumerable and troublesome..

The view which has been presented explains all the instances in which διάκονος and its cognates διακονία and διακονέω occur in the New Testament. It enables us to couple together with an uniform thread of meaning, examples which on any other hypothesis are discordant and perplexing. Those who are called servitors in the New Testament, so far as they can be identified and their history traced, were perhaps, without a single exception, missionaries, or the assistants to missionaries. Paul was a missionary; so perhaps was Phebe, of Cenchrea. The churches of apostolic times were all missionary bodies. The preaching of the gospel was the Christian SERVICE. How appropriate would be the term, to distinguish those who went abroad, from the overseers of the churches, to call them, whether male or female, servitors of Jesus Christ!

The view which has been presented promises efficiency. If the ministry is true to Christ it cannot be too efficient. If it is not true to Christ the proper remedy is to set aside its unworthy incumbents and choose others. The right of choice involves the right of deposition if incorrigible abuses demand summary discipline.

This view commends itself also by presenting a healthful stimulant to favor the growth of the Christian ministry. It is an incalculable calamity that the vital process, by which the increase of the ministry would naturally keep pace with the growth of the church, should be arrested by the introduction of mechanical contrivances, which only obstruct vitality and produce weakening deformity. Men should be selected for pastoral assistants who at length "may be able to teach others also." This is the appropriate accompaniment to the prayer that "the Lord of the harvest would send forth laborers into his harvest."

This view brings all believers into a common correlation to Jesus Christ, their living head. He and he alone is worthy of the dignity and imperial exaltation which a retinue of servitors implies. He is the executive head of the Christian dispensation, and, therefore, the ministry is properly subject to his dictation. He alone has the infallibility which is essential to a consistent diaconal regimen which secures order without an abridgment of personal liberty. He is the only conscience-keeper in whom it is safe to confide. To Him alone men can become obsequious without degrading their manhood. In Him alone slavery is baptized into freedom. He who built the magnificent structure of Grecian civilization and gave it the peculiar shape which it bore in order to prepare an exact and copious nomenclature by which divine realities could receive appropriate designation, and thereby the tidings of salvation be carried to all nations and ages, is worthy to receive the direct and personal homage of an undivided retinue of servitors; for he hath on his vesture and on his thigh the name written, KING OF KINGS, and LORD OF LORDS.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS

J. COLVER WIGHTMAN.

ALMOST every preacher one meets, if asked whether he often

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makes expository discourses, will answer, "No; I have long believed there ought to be more preaching of that kind, but the attempts I formerly made in that direction were quite unsuccessful, and it seems I have no talent for it." But how few have ever fairly tried to develop such a talent. Men labor for years to acquire the power of producing a good topical sermon. All their rhetorical training, and all their practice, is directed to that end. Then they try the experiment of expository preaching, which requires a different kind of practice, and perhaps even a different method of studying the Scriptures, and wonder that their first attempts prove a comparative failure. This is as unreasonable as the course of those who, after training themselves to read sermons, make a timid and ill-prepared effort to preach without writing, and infer from the almost inevitable failure that they have no talent for extemporizing.

Now we do not propose to discuss at any length the advantages and disadvantages of expository preaching. The former are to some extent obvious and generally recognized, and they have been admirably presented by Dr. J. W. Alexander, in an article republished in his Thoughts on Preaching. As stated by him, they are as follows:

This method better corresponds with the very idea and design of