the communities in which they have been planted. But the valid use of the principle as sanctified and duly supplemented is true Congregationalism. The feeling which this principle permits to each Christian, that no man is or can become his authoritative ruler, his infallible teacher, or his mediating priest, certainly tends, when unselfishly held, to develop the practice of courage, self-reliance, charity, and self-control. He who himself acknowledges no human master or rabbi should surely be willing to have his brother Christian refrain from calling him my master, or my rabbi. He who, by virtue of his own principle, stands on an equality of self-control with every brother Christian, should surely not desire unequally to control any brother Christian. And he who, by virtue of the same principle, is trained in self-control, should surely be best fitted bravely and kindly to exercise all legitimate influence and control over others. The same principle of influence over others, as growing out of a selfhood held under control by the higher self, which exhibits the best results in rightly constituted civil government, will exhibit the best results in rightly constituted churches. The working of this principle tends to produce a church which is made up of individuals, every one of whom knows himself to be the freeman of the Lord; every one of whom, therefore, acknowledges every other one also to be a freeman of the same Lord. And it is only upon the basis of such "sanctified individualism" that the most winsome, endearing, and effective social life amongst Christians can be attained.

Upon this same basis must also be erected the social influence of the Church over the world. This principle of "sanctified individualism," instead of tending to the isolation and alienation of Christian churches from the

community at large, should tend rather to the winning of it toward the Church, and to the diffusion of the social church life amidst the community. "The third capital immunity belonging to man's nature," says Rev. John Wise,1 "is an equality amongst men, which is not to be denied by the law of nature till man has resigned himself, with all his rights, for the sake of the civil State, and then his personal liberty and equality is to be cherished and preserved to the highest degree, as will consist with all just distinctions among men of honor, and shall be agreeable with the public good." And he adds, in a passage the style of which, like many another in his charming writings, reminds us of Jeremy Taylor, "The noblest mortal, in his entrance on the stage of life, is not distinguished by any pomp of passage from the lowest of mankind; and our life hastens to the same general mark. Death observes no ceremony, but knocks as loud at the barriers of the court as at the door of the cottage. This equality being admitted bears a very great force in maintaining peace and friendship amongst men." However, in fact, New-England churches have given to themselves, alone or chiefly, the benefit of this principle of equality, the true application of the principle gives its benefit to the entire community. From the consciousness of individual worth Congregational churches have apparently sometimes argued their social superiority to the outlying community: from this consciousness they should, however, have argued rather the equal worth with themselves of every individual soul in the community. With the legitimate use of the principle of "sanctified individualism," its tendency would be to purify and strengthen the social life of the Church, and to diffuse

1 Vindication, p. 26, f.

that life by social intercourse with other churches, and with all men not yet gathered into the church state.

The same course of reasoning holds equally well with regard to two other principles of the true church polity. The principle of progress through individual inquiry may, indeed, likewise be pushed to an extreme, and so work harm to the social well-being of man. The crude forth-putting of new and strange views necessarily disturbs men socially. The path of the man who can always keep himself, or at least appear to keep himself, where the crowds are walking, is in the domain of thoughts most apt to be placid. To agree with others in opinion, to conform with prevalent views of truth, and customs of church life, seems, for a time at least, to conserve the delights, amenities, and safeguards of social church life. Intercourse between brethren who suspect each other of heresy, or of tendencies to heresy, is necessarily not so free, helpful, and multiform. Trials for heresy, counter decisions of councils, suspects in the ministry and in the laity, do not seem to make for higher social union of churches, or for more efficient social influence of the Church upon the world. And all these things grow out of that freedom of individual inquiry which Congregationalism encourages all these things are painful but necessary steps in progress through individual inquiry. It is not strange, then, that many are inclined to regard this principle as tending to disintegration, dissension, and division of churches. But, in the face of such an estimate of the principle of progress through individual inquiry, history holds the insolent but inevitable question, What, then, are you going to do about it? Shall we either enforce that "uniformity" which "God never required," or assume that "infallibility" which "God

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never granted us"? It should by this time be regarded as fairly ascertained that we cannot repress individual inquiry, and, moreover, that freedom in such inquiry is a prime requisite of progress. We may believe, in accordance with the reason of the case, and with a wide experience, that the granting of this freedom tends to conserve rather than destroy the social well-being of Christian churches, as well as the best influence socially of those churches upon the world at large.

In like manner the principle of the autonomy of the local church tends, not to isolation and oppugnancy of Christian churches, but to their firmer and more blessed social union and social influence. This is the principle of a sanctified individualism as in some sort applied to individual churches. The principle provides, in its very nature, for yielding to others all that is claimed for one's self. It lays the basis of the communion of churches in the intelligent self-control of the single churches which enter into the communion. It secures social intercourse which shall be between those who are, as necessary elements of the intercourse, best prepared to have with one another the best intercourse.

It need not be denied that even the principle of Christ's exclusive rulership has been at times pressed into the service of unsocial and selfish action of individuals and churches; but surely it will not be claimed by any Protestant that this is service to which the principle is legally bound, or for which it has been divinely secured to the Church of Christ. Jesus does not proclaim himself the sole king of his people in order that he may make them factious, schismatic, divisive, and rebellious under just human authority. The rather does this principle cultivate the highest sense of personal loyalty to Him who is the great ruler and uniter

of the world's social forces. It is not the sense of personal loyalty to Christ rather than to creeds, symbols, institutions, authorities, or official dignities of men, which constitutes the spirit of schism. Excessive organized uniformity under human rulers or leaders directly tends to foster schism. The attempt to organize the activities of the Church upon the basis of mere uniformity always produces schism. But a high degree of this sense of personal loyalty to Christ tends to unite all the constituent and elemental units of his Church in one free and yet grandly-complex organic whole.

The

There is no need to argue that the principle of the communion of churches tends to foster the social wellbeing of Christian men. This principle is by its very nature only the expression in set form of all the great ideas and facts which do both ideally and actually unite in one the different branches of the true vine. thought of the true church polity asserts the law that Christian churches shall appear to be united just so far as they are really united. All individuals in any community, who have a loving trust in Christ as their divine Redeemer, are actually united: they should, then, all appear as united. If they can be got to unite in one local church, they should appear as thus united. And every such local church should manifest just such amount and kind of Christian social union with every other Christian church in the world as such local church under the law of the gospel is obligated to have toward every other church.

The working of the common-law principle of Congregationalism with respect to the social well-being of man tends simply to conserve the results of experience as to the proper methods and due limits of social intercourse. But the principle of regenerate membership binds all