lar visible church" do not themselves in fact acknowledge Christ as their King, why should they demand of the civil government, or of other churches, that they, on their part, acknowledge the right of the particular visible church to have no other king? An institution practically political may in practice be required to submit to political rule. In other words, the principle of Christ's kingdom as a spiritual kingdom requires both that its members should be spiritual subjects, and that they should, as such subjects of government, have no other ruler but their spiritual King.

The right working, also, of the principle of individual equality and self-control is dependent upon the validity of this principle of a regenerate membership. He who is controlled by Christ has the right in the church to control himself: he is the man whose heart is in real allegiance to Christ. Popes and patriarchs and priests and bishops and kings claiming to have supreme or pre-eminent authority over their brethren, and setting themselves up for vicegerents of Christ, and heads of the Church of Christ have some fitness of place amongst those who, while making a show of being in a spiritual kingdom, do not claim to be members of that kingdom on spiritual grounds. But the element of individualism may safely have freer play in the visible church of Christ when the individualism is of that kind known as "sanctified." Doubtless these human authorities are providentially permitted, and useful as long as the visible church does not avowedly bow the heart of each member before the true spiritual authority. Only when a man calls in the spirit to the Saviour as his Lord is he both inclined and fitted to declare I have no other spiritual lord.

The relation of the autonomy of the local church to

this principle of a regenerate membership is similar to the relation just indicated. "Men adorned with a double sett of ennobling immunities" have no need to be "clapt under a government which is arbitrary and despotic." Particular visible churches must be governed in some way: the true, safe, and scriptural way is that they should govern themselves by submission of their spirits to the mind of the Holy Spirit, and by free asking and gracious accepting of the advice of others who have the mind of the Spirit in like manner with themselves. But if by their very constitution so-called churches are composed of members who have neither disposition nor ability thus to govern themselves, they must still somehow be controlled. The lack of disposition and ability does not, we presume, fatally belong to any body of regenerate men, however weak and erring; although it would be difficult, I admit, to reconcile the presumption with all the facts. Moreover, the apostolic method had certain means of disciplining churches in self-control, to which means we should not hesitate to resort. Autonomy belongs fitly, then, only to churches which are constituted upon the basis of a regenerate membership. But churches which have not a regenerate membership cannot be expected to exercise a Christian and spiritual self-control. They must, then, to some extent, be controlled ab extra, and by officers expressing the authority of a historic system or of an organized and compacted ecclesiastical scheme. The one great reason for any seeming failures of the principle of self-control for the local church is given in a lack of Christian wisdom and Christian love within its own membership.

And, further, the real and Christian communion of churches is a direct result from the regenerate character of the members of each particular visible church. In

general, the law of Christian communion among churches is that the communion shall correspond to the facts. The appearance of fellowship in life is only the just and normal expression of the reality of communion in the spirit. This reality is secured by the normal working of the principle of regenerate membership. The regenerate heart loves its brother Christian, and longs for fellowship with him. The regenerate mind trusts the deliverances of the Spirit in and through other regenerate minds; it naturally and necessarily desires to share its wisdom with its brother's wisdom, its love with its brother's love; and it is always interested in the things of Christ's universal kingdom. But as to any real communion of so-called churches whose members have no real love according to the gospel for one another, we can, of course, have nothing at all to say. There may be an organized uniformity, but there cannot be a real Christian communion, among churches composed of unregenerate members.

The right adjustment of the principle of conservation with that of progress through individual inquiry is also dependent upon this principle of a regenerate membership. It is through minds which have been really illumined and quickened from on high that genuine progress comes to the Christian Church. Genuine progress conserves the old truth: it also seeks out with diligence, and receives with joy, the new. This is the normal attitude of the regenerate soul toward truth, an attitude, alas too often misdirected, misunderstood, and persecuted by the Church. But who shall make this required perpetual re-adjustment, if it be not made by minds illumined from on high? Who shall take this right attitude toward the truth of God, if it be not taken by those whose hearts are in the right attitude toward God himself?

This principle of a regenerate membership is, then, one of pre-eminent importance to the faith of Congregational churches. It is the working of it which determines the attitude of the members of our churches to our common Christian faith. It is in the light of it that we must ask and answer the practical question, What are the requisite conditions for membership in the local Congregational Church? The question can be answered as a question of fact, only by collecting and collating all the present varied practices of the different churches. It would thus be made to appear how many so-called Congregational churches are actually carrying out the ancient principle. This we by no means propose or care to do. As a pure question of principle, and as a question of principle it is now proposed, it can be answered by reference to the foregoing truths as they are evinced in the practice of the apostolic and of the early Congregational churches.

The application of the principle of a regenerate membership involves two particulars, or rather it shows two sides of its one essential character. None but those who give credible evidence of being true believers may compose the membership of a Congregational Church. Congregational churches are to afford the privileges of Christian communion in a church way by offering to enter into a covenant with all who do give this evidence. As to what is credible evidence, the Church must in each instance, according to its best means of obtaining and judging evidence, make up its mind. This one principle, then, limits the action of the Church in two directions. The Church has no right to receive to her communion persons whom she must believe unregenerate. The Church has no right to exclude from her communion any person whom she may in charity find giving evidence of regeneration.

That the Christian churches of whose constitution and history we have information in the New Testament were designedly founded upon the basis of a new life in their members, there can be no reasonable doubt. Those who are received into these churches are everywhere represented as holding their title to membership on the evidence that they have become true believers in Christ. Those who heard the apostle Peter at Pentecost had their hearts penetrated with sharp pain on account of their sins: they were exhorted to change their underlying moral purpose, and be baptized upon the ground of their faith in the Lord Jesus; and, when they had accepted this exhortation to salvation, they were in fact baptized. Those whom the Spirit of Christ at that time added daily to the church are designated as oi ooouero, those already in process of salvation. The members of the churches are designated as "called of Jesus Christ," "called saints,"2" sanctified in Christ,"3 "saints and believers in Christ Jesus," 4 "believing brethren in Christ."5 He who reads with candor 1 Thess. i. 1-7 and 2 Thess. i. 1-4 cannot doubt what was the basis of membership in the earliest Christian churches. He who has a high regard for the thought and wish of Christ as expressed in these apostolic churches will be loath indeed either to take from or add to those conditions of membership upon which they were founded.

3 1 Cor. i. 2.

To these conditions it was the intention of modern 1 Acts ii. 37, f., 41, 47. 2 Rom. i. 6, f. 4 Eph. i. 1. Пuorois is not in this connection to be translated “faithful," but believing, fidem in Christo reponentibus: so Meyer, De Wette, and Ellicott, who all also connect èv Xplor with morois alone, the latter remarking truly that the phrase implies union and fellowship with Christ.

5 Col. i. 2. Пorois should be translated "believers" in this passage also: so Grimm (lexicon), De Wette, and Meyer, but not Ellicott.