walls as their brains reeled, the walls, therefore, fell. The interference of the secular arm and the non-interference of that arm; the "Babel" of Independency and the "Babylon" of Presbyterianizing; the associating of ministers and consociating of churches on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the refusal of other ministers to associate, and of other churches to consociate; the terrors of ruling elders and the abolition of the office of ruling elders; the too frequent calling of mutual councils and the refusal to call any councils; contempt of councils actual, and actually contemptible councils; the use of lay ordination and the substitution of clerical for lay ordination; the failure to organize a National Council and the National Council when organized; the lack of a great and awe-inspiring creed and the proposal to create an awful and unbearable bondage of a general creed, all these and many other causes of the ills borne by our church order have been frequently assigned. Our own doctors have often gravely declared our diseases mortal: under their consignment we have already died a hundred deaths. But the truth has been, and is, and will remain, that all these things are of subordinate importance. We shall really thrive according as, both in polity and doctrine, we cling by the Head, and in the spirit of Christ do our positive work as Christian churches. We have failed to thrive more, because we have not had enough of love for men, of apostolic zeal, of charity toward our brethren, of devotion to the Master.

These questions are, indeed, not to be counted trivial, or unworthy of regard. They are never to be exalted, however, to prime importance. They are not to be discussed so as to separate brethren, but rather so as to unite them in the manifestation of zeal and love.

The things which they concern are forms of manifesting the life. The life must have a manifestation; but the life is more than any one of its manifested forms.

The following five Lectures will comprise the second main division of our theme. We shall make the effort to apply the principles already set forth: (1) to the faith required for membership in the local Congregational church; (2) to the purity in the faith of Congregational ministers; (3) to the communion of Congregational churches in matters of their common faith.

The formal principle of the true church polity requires that we shall regard the Word of God in the Scripture as giving to Christian churches their rule of faith, and this not only with reference to the doctrines which they shall hold, but also with reference to the forms according to which they shall institute and manage ecclesiastical affairs. We consider, then, in this Lecture certain features of this formal principle. We consider, that is, the doctrine of the Scriptures as giving the rule of faith and discipline. We can indeed scarcely speak of any definite expression of this doctrine as being distinctively Congregational. In what sense and manner the Scriptures contain and furnish the rule of faith is a question, which, in all its details, has never been satisfactorily answered by the Christian Church. Congregationalism has displayed no distinctive and thoroughly well formulated statement of the doctrine. Certain phases and tendencies of belief are, however, of Protestant origin and Protestant characteristics. Certain minuter phases and obscurer tendencies are perhaps to be spoken of as showing to some extent the characteristics of Congregationalism. In fact, our church order has most fostered a certain way of using the Scriptures as giving the rule of faith. In

theory, this order bases itself upon the assumption that a certain form of this doctrine is alone valid: this order also proceeds to prove that this valid form should serve. as a basis for the constitution and discipline of Christian churches.

We should not, then, I repeat, venture to speak of a distinctively Congregational doctrine of Sacred Scripture, understanding by these words a doctrine which has been formulated by authorities in theology, and from them accepted by the churches. We shall show, however, that Congregationalism has, with more or less of self-conscious recognition of its own attitude, developed in partial form a distinctive phase of the general doctrine.

Only the rudiments or temporary manifestations of the formal principle of Congregationalism are to be found in the history of the Church, from the time when Romanism first established itself down to the time when the movement began in England for the establishment of Christ's churches according to the order of the New Testament. Dr. Leonard Bacon1 rightly regards the proposal which Francis Lambert made to Philip of Hesse, to establish a church polity upon the principles of the New Testament, as manifesting the presence of the Congregational idea, in 1526, in Germany. This proposal tested itself in respect to form, to reasonableness, and to obligation, by the Word of God in Scripture. It may therefore be said to constitute the earliest recognition, after the Reformation began, of this formal principle. In England, the Articles of Faith promulgated about Michaelmas, 1536, although they taught

1 Genesis of the New-England Churches, p. 53, f. A Life of this reformer has been written by J. W. Baum, entitled Franz Lambert of Avignon, Strassburg, 1840. "He was a most remarkable man," says Kurtz, Church History, II. § 7. 2.

the doctrine of transubstantiation, and retained auricular confession, and the worship of saints and images, nevertheless recognized the Holy Scriptures as the standard of appeal without reference to tradition or the papal decrees. "Bishop Burnet tells us," says Prince,1 "that, by King Henry's order, he (Lord Cromwell) declares it was the King's pleasure that the rites and ceremonies of the Church should be reformed by the rules of Scripture, and that nothing was to be maintained which did not rest upon that authority." "Now this," adds Mr. Prince, " is the grand principle of Puritanism;

and, had the governors of the Church adhered strictly to this one principle, . . . the whole Church had then been Puritan." All this was, however, vitiated both in theory and in fact by the previous Act of 1534, which had conferred upon the King the right of final decision in matters of doctrine. All the blindness and spite of the worst persecution in the most Catholic countries were brought to bear against those who dissented from the royal Confession of Faith, the Six Articles of June, 1539. Tyndale's translation of the Bible was first prohibited by royal edict, and in 1543 even the reading of the version formerly authorized and commended by the King was denied to the common people.2

That the Protestant churches on the Continent of Europe have never fully recognized this formal principle of the true church polity was indicated in a previous Lecture. Guerike, indeed, claims that "the Word of God, the Word of God alone," is the formal principle of the Lutheran Church. From this principle this author 1 New-England Chronology, p. 283. 2 Burnet, London, 1825, vol. I. p. 414.

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accuses both the Roman-Catholic Church and the Reformed Churches of departing widely, although in diverse lines of departure. The Roman-Catholic doctrine. refuses to receive the Word of God in the Scripture as alone giving the rule of faith, and co-ordinates with it tradition as a peer in its authority. But the doctrine of the Reformed Churches (and among these, no doubt Guerike would most emphatically place the Congregational churches) has in his opinion erred in making "the meaning of the divine Word actually dependent upon the comprehension or non-comprehension of the human reason:" it has, in fact, made reason judge over the Divine Word;" it has accepted "the principle of subordinating the word and the letter to the so-called spirit," and has thus introduced into the Church a "spirit-proud idealism." Substantially the same charges against the Reformed Churches does Rudelbach make in his celebrated articles on the Doctrine of Inspiration.2 According to Rudelbach, "the principles of a false spiritualism and the application of rational principles as co-ordinately determining the contents of faith," have obscured the doctrine of inspiration in the Reformed Churches. Calvin and Beza, in the opinion of these Lutheran theologians, taught this heresy. Richard Baxter led astray after him by use of this false principle the majority of English theologians. These advocates of Lutheranism adduce a number of instances of such false doctrine from the theological authors and symbols of the Reformed Churches. Rudelbach is even forced to lament, that although the Lutheran doctrine upon the Bible as furnishing the rule of faith remains unques

1 See article in Zeitschrift für die gesammte Luth. Theologie, 1840, erstes quartelheft.

2 See the same Zeitschrift, same year, erstes and zweites quartelheft.