conceded, then their principle of authoritative representation will have to be surrendered for that of independence. This could easily be effected by carrying the principle of the Presbyterian alliance (§ 68: 6) down to the general assemblies, the synods, and the presbyteries. They could resolve their judicatories into assemblies of fellowship, counsel, and expression c opinion. Their votes then would become what the votes cf the conferences of churches were in the early days, down to the union of Church and State in the fourth century, without authority to bind the minority of dissentients. They could retain their beautiful system of fellowship, and unify it from the top to the bottom on the principle of fraternity without authority.

(4) On the principle, too, of development, which we have more than once referred to, the Congregational Theory will possess the field. It comes latest as the consummate flower of all. True, it is not strictly developed out of any theory or theories; for it was "the plan of the apostles to establish a great number of distinct, independent churches;" but the principle then announced and embodied was buried up for more than a millennium by adverse theories. Those theories did not lie in the Congregational Theory as steps in its development, but they came in through an adverse environment to bury the true form. That original form, like a buried seed, when the environment had changed, burst forth into life amidst persecution and death, with the promise of the future in it. The other theories are undergoing testing by the Word and by the providence of God. They fail to express the brotherhood of the saints in its fullness of liberty. Hence they must cease. This expresses brotherhood, and hence makes all in the local church equal, makes all local churches equal, and issues in popular government and liberty. It is able to exhibit the unity of the church-kingdom on principles of fellowship and coöperation, and so to fulfill the prayer of the Master that all may be one, that the world may believe on him. Thus the glorious end is reached on "the plan of the apostles."

"And he gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ."-Saint Paul.

§ 111. THE ministry of the Word logically and historically comes before the gathering of churches, whose materials and relation one to another have been considered. As the true religion is not a natural product, but a revelation from God, there must be heralds of it divinely fitted, chosen, and commissioned; and they, in the order of nature, must precede the acceptance of that religion. To make the ministry the creature of the churches, or an office relation in the churches, is therefore to reverse the order; it places the agent as the product of his own work, the effect before the cause. This is the fatal defect of the Pastoral Theory of the ministry. That theory makes the ordinary ministry to depend on there being a church already existing to call and ordain a man as pastor, and also on his remaining a pastor. If he remit his office as pastor he becomes a layman again. Thus the ordinary ministry is made one of office, not of function and service. Where there are no churches, in heathen lands or anywhere else, there can be no ministry; hence on this theory missionaries are laymen until churches are gathered to make them ministers. This partial theory reverses the order of things, both logically and historically; and hence the churches generally have held the ministry to be a function of the church-kingdom for the enlargement of itself, endowed, called, commissioned, and sent by the Head and King. He takes the initiative in calling men to preach

his everlasting gospel, not merely at the outset, in a special ministry, but also all the time, in the ordinary ministry of the Word. In every case the function of the ministry is before the pastoral office. Hence the churches, when gathered, are simply to call and ordain whom the Lord has commissioned as his ministers.

Before we consider, therefore, the internal constitution of the independent local churches, we will consider the ministry of the Word.

§ 112. The Christian ministry is not a priesthood. There was a parental priesthood in the patriarchal dispensation, and the Aaronic priesthood in the ceremonial dispensation, and both priesthoods offered bloody sacrifices. So the Christian dispensation has its priesthood, but it is not the ministry of the Word.

(1) A priest is strictly one who offers sacrifices, both expiatory and eucharistic. This is the use of the word in the Scriptures. Presbyter is sometimes shortened into priest, but this is a perversion. A priest must have somewhat to offer on an altar in worship; in doing which he stands as mediator between God and the worshiper. In the sanctuary and the temple, laymen were forbidden to enter even the place where the sacrifices were offered. He who served as priest in the line of Aaron had to be physically perfect, and was consecrated or ordained to the office, being himself separated from the laity.

(2) Jesus Christ was a priest, and a high priest, of a new order. He is called a "high priest," a "great high priest," called of God to be a priest forever, "after the order of Melchizedek," "another priest," which involves a change of the law (Heb. 3: 1; 5: 1; 7: 11, 12). He offered sacrifice, one sacrifice for sins for ever," having been "manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb. 10: 11, 12; 9: 26). Then he entered the Holy of holies in the heavens (Heb. 6: 20); he "through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemp

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tion" (Heb. 9: 12), and "sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle," "the mediator of a better covenant" (Heb. 8: 1, 2, 6). He is the Christian's high priest.

(3) Christ gathered the whole priesthood into himself, and so removed it from his church-kingdom on earth. This is argued at length in the Epistle to the Hebrews. "He, because he abideth for ever, hath his priesthood unchangeable (Heb. 7: 24); "who needeth not daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices . . . for this he did once for all, when he offered up himself" (7: 27); "but now once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (9: 26). "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (10: 10). "Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin" (10: 18).

There are, then, no more sacrifices to be offered for sins forever; and, if no more sacrifices, there is no further need of an earthly priesthood and altar. Christ has gathered into his own priesthood the whole priestly office, and then by the one sacrifice of himself, "once for all" and "for ever," has purchased eternal redemption for all that believe in him, and has thus abolished altar, sacrifices, and priesthood.

(4) The church-kingdom on earth has therefore no priesthood or sacrifices or altar. It is an impeachment of Christ's one atoning sacrifice on the cross, to substitute a priesthood with its altar and sacrifices for the Christian ministry. Yet the Council of Trent (1545-1563) decreed that in the mass thesame Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner who once offered himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross;" and that "this sacrifice is truly propitiatory."1 "If any one saith that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the 1 On the Mass, chap. ii.

cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice. . . let him be anathema." If there be a sacrifice, there must be also a priesthood to offer. Hence the same council decreed that there is in the Christian Church "a new, visible, and external priesthood," for "consecrating, offering, and administering" this sacrifice, with an anathema for all who deny it.3 With this new and external priesthood to offer the sacrifice of the mass, the table becomes a veritable altar.

The Orthodox Greek Church also holds that the Eucharist is an expiatory sacrifice, and the ministry a priesthood. The Old Catholics reject the idea of a sacrifice in the Eucharist,5 and hence of a true priesthood. The Anglican and Episcopal churches reject the idea of a sacrifice in the Lord's Supper, though the ritualists in those churches retain it. The Lutherans, in the mother confession of Protestantism, retain the name of mass, but deplete it of its sacrificial character.7 Other Protestants reject both the name of mass and the idea of sacrifice in the communion, hence also the priesthood and the altar.

No fair interpretation of the New Testament supports the theory of a Christian priesthood, which was introduced from the preceding dispensation. Indeed, the only passage that looks in a priestly direction by the use of the word “altar” (Heb. 13: 10) refers, as the context shows, to Christ Jesus, who "suffered without the gate," as the sacrifices were "burned without the camp."

§ 113. The ministry of the Word is a function of the church-kingdom. "With the exception of the Quakers and Anabaptists, all Christian communities have been agreed in this. But a divergence of sentiment has obtained as to the relation of the ministerial order to the general body of Christians. The Protestants ascribe to that order a distinction from other believers, grounded only on the function of their

2 Canons on the Mass, iii.
11 Ency. Brit. 158.
Creed, art. xxxi.

3 On Sacrament of Order, i; Canons on Order, i..

5 Creed, Art. xiv.

7 Augsburg Conf., part il, art. xxiv, 3.