FISHER 
 Presbytery 
 
 BX 
 
 9178 
 F5P7
 
 PRESBYTERY. 
 
 A SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED AT 
 
 THE OPENING OF THE SYNOD OF CINCINNATI, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 OXFORD, OHIO, OCTOBER 18, 1850, 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL W. FISHER. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE SYNOD. 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 
 GAZETTE OFFICE, WRIGHT, FERRIS & CO., PRINTERS. 
 1850.
 
 
 - 

 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 &ANTA BARBARA 
 
 SERMON. 
 
 " But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, 
 which is the head, even Christ : from whom the whole body fitly joined 
 together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according 
 to the effectual working in the measure of e\ery part, maketh increase 
 of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." Ephesians iv. 15, 16. 
 
 In the human body, far more strikingly than among the 
 brutes, the head occupies the chief seat of dignity. Here 
 is the wonderful organism of thought; here the source of 
 those vital currents that traverse the entire system and 
 flow to the extremities. From this comes forth the clear 
 view, the profound understanding, the energetic purpose, 
 the vigorous will. It is this dome of the ever-thinking 
 soul, that proclaims man's supremacy above brute nature. 
 With this erect he treads the earth, its acknowledged 
 lord. The body, dependent on, and so subordinate to, 
 this intelligent chief, has its own work and its own char- 
 acteristics. It is constructed of many parts, adapted to 
 diverse operations, bearing various forms. It has its limbs 
 without, as the executives of the will of the indwelling 
 spirit; while within, it is furnished with that wonderful 
 mechanism, which, independently of the volitions, elabor- 
 ates the blood, and diffuses and maintains the animal 
 vitality through the entire system. To this human form 
 the apostle in our text compares the Christian Church.
 
 . 
 
 Christ is the head, occupying the position of highest dig- 
 nity, containing in himself the fullness of that spiritual 
 life which flows in vital currents to the extremities of the 
 Church; while, as the possessor of infallible wisdom, he 
 presides over all her movements, and as the inheritor of 
 all power, he secures to her protection and blessing. The 
 Church itself is the body, dependent on him for vital 
 communications, and wholly subordinate to his rule. This 
 Church is not, in form, distinguished by some single fea- 
 ture. Like the body, it has its trunk and limbs. The 
 diversity of gifts, of offices, and operations which belong 
 to the former, are employed by the apostles as a fine illus- 
 tration of the diverse offices and operations characteristic 
 of the latter. Instead of all being under obligation to 
 minister in the same manner to the edification of the 
 brethren, there is everywhere inculcated a striking diver- 
 sity both of original gifts and ecclesiastical offices, which 
 are to be exercised and filled for the good of all. Some are 
 set apart to this work, others to that ; some minister at 
 tables; some rule with authority; some work miracles; 
 some preach the truth; some declare the future; some, 
 with infallible certainty, settle the foundations of the 
 Christian faith, and complete the canon of the inspired 
 word. "For the body is not one member, but many." "If 
 the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If 
 the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But 
 now hath God set the members, every one of them, in the 
 body as it hath pleased him. Now, ye are the body of 
 Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set 
 some in the Church: first, apostles; secondly, prophets; 
 thirdly, teachers; after that, miracles; then gifts of heal- 
 ing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. Are all
 
 5 
 
 apostles? Are all prophets ? Are all teachers? Are all 
 workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? Do 
 all speak with tongues ? Do all interpret?" 
 
 The Church, thus impressively placed before us, was 
 not, like a prairie, a dead, monotonous level, unbroken by 
 hill and vale, unvariegated by lofty mountains and far- 
 sounding cataract ; nor was it like a village built thereon, 
 in which every house bore the same outward form, was 
 limited to precisely the same dimensions, in which no 
 parthenon lifted itself above humbler dwellings, and no 
 vast temple, or palace, stood forth in singular majesty. 
 It is not a Church of a single office, a membership undis- 
 tinguished by orders, governors, and diversities of offices. 
 It is indeed a Church in its outward form, fitted to the 
 undeveloped and elementary state of youth; furnished 
 with some gifts and offices that either ceased by necessity 
 with the death of their possessors, or ceased from the pass- 
 ing away of the emergency which gave them existence. 
 It possessed officers, who, by the very nature of their 
 office, were incapacitated from having successors. It had 
 its apostles, its prophets, its miracle workers ; a mighty 
 enginery through which the divine energy wrought out the 
 establishment of Christianity in ways the most splendid, 
 and manifestly supernatural; and at length brought forth 
 that greatest miracle on which the eyes of all coming gen- 
 erations might rest, even the New Testament Scriptures 
 an enginery, however, too cumbersome for Christianity 
 when once established, and destined, with all its magnifi- 
 cence, to take its place beside the splendid ritual of the 
 economy of Moses. Just as that Moses, a single, mighty 
 mind, a general of despotic power, was essential to the 
 establishment of that tabernacle and priestly service, that 

 
 6 
 
 dispensation which was to educate the people of God till 
 Shiloh came ; so was the apostolic hierarchy, and the out- 
 flaming splendor of miracles, essential to the establish- 
 ment of Christianity. And just as that despotism fell to 
 the ground, when the exigency that had created it passed 
 away, leaving to Israel a government of simple republican- 
 ism, so did the apostles, and prophets^ and workers of 
 miracles retire from the stage forever, When the necessity 
 which gave them to the Church had ceased. They who 
 saw Christ on earth ; they who penetrated into the future 
 and brought forth its mysteries ; they who spake with 
 tongues and suspended the laws of nature, that through 
 them divine wisdom might gather about the cross the con- 
 victions of the world, left for future generations their 
 testimony embalmed in the word of God. Their extraor- 
 dinary mission ended., the Church is committed to this 
 inspired volume for her guidance and defense; while 
 through the offices and gifts that remain to her, she seeks 
 to train the world for heaVen. 
 
 It is the doctrine of the text, that each part of the 
 Church of Christ has its own appropriate Work, in the 
 performance of which not only itself, but the Whole body 
 is vitally and happily affected. This work is not here 
 divided off and distinguished. In other parts of Scrip- 
 ture, the leading offices and departments of labor are 
 marked out; but in the main it is left to the members of the 
 household of faith, in the exercise of an intelligent piety, 
 to discern and perform that which belongs to them indi- 
 vidually and collectively. It is not proposed in this dis- 
 course to enumerate the various duties that rise out of 
 the relation of Christians to each other, and the world. 
 I wish rather to limit the discussion to those more promi* 

 
 7 
 
 nent works and offices which give form to the Church 
 before the world 'the outward machinery through which 
 her power manifests itself in the view of men. In doing 
 this, you will permit ma to reverse the usual process, and 
 instead of proceeding from results back to causes, to ad- 
 vance from causes to results. Let us seek to determine, 
 from the known principles of man's nature and the truth 
 of God, what will be a truly spiritual and healthy devel- 
 opment of the body of Christ; what will be the various 
 offices and operations essential to its most perfect form in 
 the ordinary state of Christianity; let us descend to its 
 original elements, and, keeping in our view the mixed and 
 imperfect nature to be moulded, and the character of the 
 truth through which that nature is to be changed into the 
 fullness of the divine image, let us proceed thence to trace 
 out its unfolding according to the condition and necessi- 
 ties of a life on earth. 
 
 The word "Church" is originally a term which, as 
 Hooker well observes, "art hath devised, thereby to sever 
 and distinguish that society of men which professeth 
 the true religion, from the rest which profess it not.'* 
 The "ecclesia" * of Scripture points to the assemblage of 
 those whom God hath elected out of the world, to be his 
 disciples. When, then, a number of such persons are 
 found together, as either are, or suppose they are renewed 
 by the grace of God, and receive the Saviour as their re- 
 deemer, and the word of God as their infallible rule of 
 lire, their first want will be some outward union, enabling 
 them to enjoy the means of grace, and the ordinances of 
 
 * " Ecclesia," or Church, the elect, the called out of, the sepa* 
 rate.
 
 
 the Gospel, the materials for individual improvement, such 
 as mere isolation never can bestow. Christianity, indeed? 
 while it is individual and personal in its commencement, 
 yet is social and general in the sympathies and tenden- 
 cies it creates ; while in its origin it begins in the single 
 heart, shut up to itself and God, yet in its progress it 
 creates an expansive affection that, like the sunlight, 
 seeks objects on which to pour itself, and around which it 
 may shed the fullness of its own joy; so that he who 
 yesterday felt isolated from the world, a guilty sinner, 
 stricken by the arrow of justice, and flying from the sight 
 of men to the solitude of his chamber, or to the recesses 
 of the forest ; to-day a penitent believer, pants for the 
 communion of saints, the comfort of their sympathy, the 
 joy of their affection, the instruction of their experience, 
 the quickening influence of their prayers, and the exalta- 
 tion and guidance of their public worship. By a law of 
 sympathy and affection and interest, as true, as certain as 
 that which urges the drops trickling from the mountain 
 sides to unite in rivulets, and from rivulets to form rivers, 
 do individual Christians flow together into Christian assem- 
 blies for mutual edification, and the more rapid increase and 
 perfection of the body of Christ. There is a law of Christian 
 union and unity which springs into existence cotemporane- 
 ously with the birth of a soul into the kingdom of God, and 
 instantly begins to attract together the scattered mem- 
 bers of the visible Church. The outward necessity of 
 combining to maintain the ordinances of the Gospel, and 
 promote the advancement of religion among men, is based 
 upon a secret law of affection and sympathy, which thus 
 admirably secures spiritual harmony and unity long before 
 the mere necessities of the Christian life have originated
 
 If 
 
 a visible and formal organization. "Behold how these 
 
 
 Christians love one another," antedates the form and 
 regimen of the visible Church, and insures their existence. 
 This primary assembly, without organization, without gov- 
 ernment, holds the elements of a Church of Christ. It is 
 not, indeed, a perfectly formed Church) fitted for the most 
 successful action; but it is the beginning of such a Church. 
 The company of believers who thus assemble to worship 
 God, and administer the ordinances of the Gospel, and 
 assist each other to spread the knowledge of Christ among 
 men, although they have not attained the form of a well- 
 developed and fitly-organized Christian Church, are yet a 
 portion of the body of Christ, and the materials of such 
 a Church gathered together for" a healthful adjustment. 
 
 One of the first wants felt "by such an assemblage, will 
 be the terms of communion. For as truth, doctrine, prin- 
 ciples are ultimately the source of feeling, and so of har- 
 mony, it must first be determined what truths these 
 individuals recognize as the platform on which they shall 
 all stand. As the object of such a union is Christian 
 communion, Christian worship, Christian ordinances, and 
 the advancement of Christian interests, it must first be 
 settled what this communion and worship, these ordinances 
 and interests involve as essential. Hence, from the ne- 
 cessities of the human mind, from a necessity inherent in 
 the organization of a Church of Christ, from the necessity 
 of distinguishing it from the Church of the devil,* and 
 for the mutual understanding and communion of its mem- 
 bers, the creed, or the expression of that which forms the 
 
 bond of such union, arises. We freely admit and rest 
 
 
 
 * Rev, ii- 9.
 
 10 
 
 upon the opinion, that the word of God is the only infalli- 
 ble rale of faith and practice, the ultimate standard and 
 final test of all doctrines that affect the salvation of men. 
 Bat when it is said the Bible, and that alone, is our creed, 
 we wish to know what, in your opinion, that book teaches. 
 If it contained merely a collection of abstract, colorless, 
 passionless propositions; a series of axioms, of lines and 
 angles, about which, there could be no mistake, and of 
 which there could be no perversion and misrepresentation, 
 then for one man to profess to receive it, would be as 
 plain to another as the professed reception of the axioms 
 of geometry. Instead of this, the Bible is addressed to 
 the whole man, not merely to his reason and intuitive 
 perceptions, but through them to his affections, his hopes, 
 and his fears. Yea, it rises far above reason, and brings 
 forth the openings of deep mysteries, the beginnings of 
 vast truths, to us visible only in part, while the rest 
 stretches far away into the profoundness of the being and 
 eternity of God. It staggers reason by its amazing com- 
 manications; it appeals to faith to bear up the burden of 
 its lofty teachings; it crosses the earthly passions at the 
 very outset of its announcements; it overrides all human 
 authority, probtrates all human dignity, and seeks not to 
 save a man till it has convinced him that he is lost; or to ex- 
 alt him to riches and purity, till it has made him poor and 
 vile, and utterly without strength. Such a Bible as this, in 
 such a world as this, uttering itself in figures, in allegories, 
 in all the forms of human language, moulded by all the dif- 
 ferent povrers of the intellect and the heart, becomes itself a 
 discipline to the mind of the world, and its partial or full re- 
 ception by the intellect and affections, as much a matter of 
 {rial as the exercise of faith in the Son of God, with which it
 
 11 
 
 ultimately unites. It is a book whose teachings may be 
 Wrested, by those who are so purposed, to their own des- 
 truction; it is a book that wickedness may distort, and 
 prejudice pervert. They have thus wrested it in every 
 age. In proportion to its excellence; its adaptation to the 
 human mind; its glory, transcendant above all other writ- 
 ings; its variety and condensation, and directness, and 
 superhuman power, is its capability of perversion and mis- 
 interpretation by men of an evil spirit. To make, there- 
 fore, a professed reception of the Bible, the term of 
 communion, is to leave the door open for the widest and 
 wildest extremes of opinion; it would throw the vital bond 
 of a Christian Church around those whose views, and 
 sympathies, and feelings on the most fundamental of all 
 questions, as experience has long since demonstrated, 
 might be in direct opposition ; it would sweep together 
 Hume and Wilberforce, Priestly and Payson, Pelagius and 
 Augustine, Luther and Gregory, a heterogeneous mass of 
 elements too hard to be moulded, too active to be re- 
 strained, too discordant for harmonious development or 
 efficient co-operation. 
 
 If now the attempt should be made to avoid this diffi- 
 culty, b}' recognizing only such as truly and fully received 
 the Bible according to the most common-sense interpreta- 
 tion, yet this very attempt must be preceded by a settle- 
 ment of the question: What is this common-sense in- 
 terpretation ? What does this book teach? In other words, 
 by the formation of a creed. On the other hand, if 
 Christian experience be constituted the term of Christian 
 fellowship, yet the same difficulty meets us at the thresh- 
 hold; what constitutes Christian experience? What are its 
 <elements? By what is it measured, and how shall it be
 
 12 
 
 tested? But this is to form a creed. Besides, Christian 
 experience is but the counterpart of Christian doctrine ; it 
 is doctrine incarnated, living, acting. The heart is moulded 
 by the truth. The views entertained by the subject of a 
 Christian, or a purely worldly experience, will stamp them- 
 selves upon that experience. As the parent prints the 
 lineaments of his face upon his offspring, so will they upon 
 their offspring. What is thought of God, and Christ, and 
 the Holy Ghost of sin and atonement, of justification, 
 and works, and faith, and prayer, will as surely be revealed 
 in the experience, as the character of the mould is de- 
 clared by the casting. In these vital questions, God hath 
 bound the intellect and the heart so closely together, that 
 all who are born into his kingdom, are said to have been 
 born again by the truth. The word occupies no subor- 
 dinate position in the origin of the Christian life, and all true 
 experience in a believer is, necessarily, the feeling which 
 that truth, when received, has wrought in the soul. It 
 follows, therefore, that, in order to the perfect organization 
 of a Christian Church, the terms of communion, involving 
 the fundamental principles of the Gospel received into 
 the intellect, and, as far as man can judge, into the heart, 
 will first be settled. And be the expression of this longer 
 or shorter, written or understood, it will constitute a cree d, 
 or confession of their faith. * 
 
 .This congregation of believers have now attained the 
 terms of communion. But meeting in mass, they are 
 without officers, without an executive or administrative 
 organization. They have, as yet, no government. They 
 are all equal in right, in privilege, in obligation. They 
 are agreed as to what they believe; but not as to what 
 
 * Rom. xvi. 17. Gal. i. 7. Matt. xxiv. 4, 5.
 
 13 
 
 they will do; nor as to the manner in which they shall 
 seek to realize the purposes for which they assemble. 
 TJhey have only determined w ho shall be permitted to be- 
 long to their communion; how that communion will best 
 be preserved and promoted, is yet unsettled. No sooner 
 do they meet for worship, than difficulties arise, wants 
 reveal themselves. Are all to pray? Can all teach? Are 
 all obligated to administer the ordinances? Such an as- 
 sembly is a mob, without "decency," and without "order." 
 It is found essential to their edification, to appoint officers ; 
 to set apart some to special duties, clothe them with spe- 
 cial privileges and powers; in short, to organize a govern- 
 ment, and frame the regimen of public worship. In doing 
 this, it is found necessary, in the first place, that some one 
 should be set apart to lead in the devotions of the assembly, 
 and stand responsible for its order and wise conduct. It 
 is necessary that some one should administer the sacra- 
 ments in an orderly and impressive manner; that there 
 should be some one, of sufficient wisdom and knowledge 
 of the word, to visit the sick and the dying, and exercise 
 a care for all the congregation. The Bible being such a 
 book as it is, so full, so rich, so various, written originally 
 in other, and those dead languages, in another land, colored 
 by customs, and manners, and scenes foreign to most of 
 the world, and replete with profound doctrines, remote 
 from the popular apprehension: the mind of man being 
 what it is, so easily blinded to the truth; and the life of 
 man being so full of care and business of time, render- 
 ing it needful that clear and stirring views of truth should 
 often be presented to it; and more than all, the world being 
 indifferent or hostile, and demanding that the principles 
 of the Gospel should be clearly unfolded, proved, defended
 
 14 
 
 against objections, and urged home upon the souls of men, 
 to win them to Christ; these things being so, it is found 
 necessary that some one should be set apart to the special 
 work of preaching the Gospel, of defending its doctrines, 
 and presenting its various truths according to the wants 
 and circumstances of the congregation. As these duties 
 are of the most difficult character, as they demand study 
 and time, and learning, tasking the highest powers of the 
 intellect, so a person must be selected, best qualified for 
 such a work, by the ripeness of his mental powers, and 
 especially by that spiritual discipline, through which the 
 grace of God most manifestly sets men apart for these 
 high duties. As the position is one of great responsibil- 
 ity, so it should be clothed with great dignity; as it is one 
 of continued labor, of the incessant devotion of all the 
 powers of the man, to the spiritual interests and eternal 
 well-being of the Church and world, so its incumbent, lifted 
 above all anxiety about temporal wants, should be upheld 
 by an ample and generous support. Hence springs the 
 ministry of reconciliation and edification. It belongs to 
 the fallen and impure state of man, and the imperfect 
 condition of the Church. It rises naturally out of those 
 very necessities which originally constrained the union of 
 the people of God in religious assemblies. In the form in 
 which it now exists, it is peculiar to Christianity. Neither 
 Paganism, Judaism nor Mohamedanism brought forth the 
 simple and original idea of a Christian ministry a min- 
 istry, "not appointed like the priests of Pagan antiquity, 
 for the performance of ceremonies, but for the inculcation 
 of truth; not to conduct the pomp of lustrations and 
 sacrifices, but to watch for souls, as they that must give 
 account" It arises out of the simple structure of Christ-
 
 15 
 
 ianity itself, seeking by the power of truth, to impress the 
 reason, quicken the conscience, and purify the heart; out 
 of the divine purpose to bring religion home to the bosoms 
 of men, through the frequent unfolding of the truth by 
 human lips, rather than by an impressive and a formal 
 ceremonial. The design of God, and the intent of the 
 Saviour thus harmonize with our necessities. The same 
 causes which impel a Christian people to unite at all, will 
 oblige them to go farther, to institute and maintain for 
 the more perfect accomplishment of all the great objects 
 of their association, the ministry of the Gospel.* 
 
 Having thus elected and set apart one to act as their 
 minister, pastor, or bishop, they have next to determine 
 the order of public worship. In doing this, they would 
 naturally be guided by three principles. They will seek a 
 style of worship in harmony with the simplicity of the 
 Christian dispensation best adapted to promote the pur- 
 est spirituality, and bring the heart most directly into 
 contact with God and one that will most fully meet the 
 varying wants of a congregation. 
 
 First, it will be their aim to arrange their worship in 
 harmony with the simplicity of Christianity. The age of 
 rites, and types, and impressive ceremonial, was closed by 
 the advent of Christ. The temple, with its elaborate ?r- 
 rangements and successive passages of deepening solem- 
 nity, from the court of the Gentiles to the holiest of 
 holies ; the altar, with its round of sacrifices, its lustra- 
 tions, and incense, and blood; the priests, with their 
 distinctive and gorgeous vestments ; and the Levites, with 
 their various service, all passed away when He appeared. 
 
 * Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. Acts xx. 28. Jer. iii. 15. 1 Pet. v. 3, 
 4. 1 Cor. iv. 1. 2 Cor. iii. 6.
 
 16 
 
 There was a propriety in this splendid and diversified re- 
 gimen of God's house, at the time of its institution. The 
 holding up on high the mighty fact of atonement by 
 blood, as yet revealed only in prophesy, and, therefore, easy 
 to be misapprehended and lost j the gathering together of 
 Israel around the altar, for the express purpose of isolating 
 them from all other nations, as. the matrix in which the 
 Christian Church was to be formed for its glorious birth 
 these are considerations that obviously justify the ecclesi- 
 astical constitution of Moses. But when Jesus came, 
 these reasons existed no longer. The cross was planted, 
 the gospel written, and the truth of redemption was set 
 up in history, amid the most stupendous transactions of 
 human and divine power, where the world could not help 
 see it through all future time. That which rites and types 
 once taught, now was proclaimed by apostles and ministers, 
 and unfolded in the New Testament; no longer isolated 
 in Judea, it was prepared and destined to speak to the 
 heart of universal man. That whickonce bore the stamp 
 of a divinely impressed propriety, in this new and simple 
 dispensation, where circumcision availeth nothing, and 
 Moses gives place to Jesus, bears upon its front the im- 
 press of an obvious impropriety as a reversal of the 
 intent of God an attempt to cast the swathing bands of 
 infancy around the expanding form of youth, and dwarf 
 the stature of the soul into the diminutiveness, of a per- 
 petual childhood. 
 
 In harmony with this sweeping away of the old, the 
 formal, the typical, the ritual, the intricate, the outwardly 
 splendid ; in harmony with the rent veil, and the openness 
 of the divine revelation, and the directness of its appeals, 
 and the entire simplicity of the new dispensation, this 

 
 17 
 
 congregation of believers will have as little of art and form 
 about their worship as is consistent with a just order, va- 
 riety, and uniformity. The preaching of the Gospel, the 
 reading of the holy Scriptures, the offering of prayer, and 
 the singing of psalms and hymns, constituting the ele- 
 ments of public worship, will follow each other according 
 to the simplest arrangment, so as to relieve alike both 
 pastor and people from undue fatigue, and secure the ut- 
 most depth and unity of impression. They will not seek 
 to work these things together as a piece of art, an elaborate 
 Mosaic service, in which the hand of invention shall be 
 perpetually visible; to understand which, requires study 
 and practice ; involving a long-drawn succession of changes 
 of posture, of erections and prostrations, of addresses and 
 responses, so complicated as to demand a directory, and 
 bewilder even the intelligent stranger, who, for the first 
 time, witnesses it, and lead him to imagine himself in the 
 presence of some pantomimic representation. They will 
 seek rather to have the number of changes, in their ser- 
 vice, as few as is consistent with a just variety, and so 
 open and simple in their order, as to commend themselves 
 to the piety and intelligence of all the followers of Jesus. 
 They will not clothe their ministers in priestly vestments 
 bringing back into Christian assemblies the Mosaic idea 
 of a formal and outward holiness, in opposition to the New 
 Testament idea, that all Christians are now a royal priest- 
 hood,* and attracting to the mere man that attention 
 which should be given to the truth. Standing upon the 
 higher platform of this Christian dispensation, they will 
 conform the style of their worship to its noble simplicity.
 
 18 
 
 Second, they will seek a kind of service best adapted 
 to promote the highest spirituality of mind, and Irirg the 
 heart into the most intelligent communion with God. In 
 the service of the sanctuary, there are two principal ob- 
 jects. The first is instruction, the second, the awakenirg 
 and expression of devotion ; the first involves the com- 
 munication of just views of the divine character, and our 
 relations and duties; the second, the expression of our 
 affections, and the training of the heart to intimate and 
 direct communion with the Redeemer. The first is essen- 
 tial to the second ; it is the foundation for the edifice, it 
 is the condition indispensable to all true devotion. Cor- 
 rect views must precede correct emotions ; and the soul 
 can never grow in grace save as it grows in the knowledge 
 of Christ. Ignorance is the mother of vice, and can 
 never be associated as an ally in man's spiritual progress, 
 The very illuminations of the divine spirit honor the truth, 
 by being always associated with it. 
 
 It is the glory of this' Christion dispensation, that the 
 Gospel is preached; that the priesthood and the rite-per- 
 former have given place to the ministry of reconciliation 
 sent forth primarily not to baptize,* but to preach the 
 word of life in season and out of season, reproving, exhort- 
 ing, instructing, that the man of God may be thoroughly 
 furnished unto all good works. A Christian Church will 
 have a care, therefore, that, in the ordering of their public 
 worship, they give the chief place to the preaching of the 
 truth ; that they put foremost that which Jesus and his- 
 apostles hare placed foremost ; that they adopt no ritual 
 by which this noblest, this most characteristic power of 
 
 * 1 Cor. L 17.
 
 19 
 
 the Christian dispensation, is prevented from having its 
 fullest development, and putting forth its highest energy. 
 The faithful preaching of the word, more than all things 
 else, is connected with the spirituality of the Church; 
 and no matter how orthodox and correct may be the other 
 parts of the divine service, yet, if this be absent, or if it 
 be degraded to an incidental and an inferior position, or 
 if the pulpit contradict the desk, and that which is the 
 expression of devotion find nothing in the instructions of 
 the sanctuary by which it may gain new life and strength 
 then piety will decline, and the form of religion will alone 
 remain, as the shell within which the kernel is withered. 
 
 But when they have made thus prominent the preach- 
 ing of the word, it will be necessary for them to determine 
 in what manner the other parts of divine service, especial- 
 ly that of prayer, shall be conducted. Here, in these 
 last days, two ways present themselves. The one is the 
 printed form; the other, the spontaneous offering of the 
 heart, guided by the intellect, and receiving its shape in 
 the utterance of the minister. The first selects the prayers 
 of good men, and repeats them, without variation, from 
 Sabbath to Sabbath, and from year to year. The second 
 supposes that the pastor, if he have intelligence and piety 
 enough to preach, ought to have enough to lead the devo- 
 tions of the people in prayer. 
 
 Without entering into a protracted discussion of this 
 subject, it will be sufficient, for my present purpose, to 
 present a single train of thought True prayer, let it be 
 borne in mind, is the most intimate, direct, and unveiled 
 communion with God. It is most perfect when the heart 
 is brought most immediately into the presence of God, is 
 most entirely isolated from all things else, and is most
 
 20 
 
 fully aosorbed in directly addressing Jehovah. Supposing 
 always that the views of the worshipper respecting the 
 being worshipped are correct, prayer involves a direct 
 application to an invisible Jehovah, a summoning of the 
 whole man to the most abstract and spiritual of all works, 
 a retirement from the world of sense to the world of spir- 
 it, a bringing up from the depths of the soul, all its wants 
 and all its emotions, and a spreading them forth before 
 the eye of an omniscient and an ever-present Lord. And 
 that mode of prayer will demonstrably be the best, which 
 most effectually accomplishes these objects; not that 
 which produces a vague present impression, not that which 
 most easily seizes hold of the senses^ not that which does 
 away with the necessity for a personal application of the 
 mind and heart to the work before it ; but that which 
 shuts up the man to this one business, which compels iso- 
 lation from worldly objects, and casts out worldly thoughts, 
 which obliges the heart and mind to engage in it, which 
 most effectually trains them for this highest and purest 
 work of an intelligent spirit. 
 
 To effect this training, and accustom the spirit to rise, 
 as on eagle's wings, heavenward, and hold most intimate 
 converse with Jehovah, and open to him all the inmost 
 man, we are well assured, from a wide and protracted ex- 
 perience of the Church in different ages, the habit of 
 extempore prayer is greatly more powerful than the con- 
 stant use of a printed form. In the former case, the eyes 
 are closed to all external objects of attraction, and the 
 mind stimulated to apply itself exclusively to the one 
 great business of supplication. And though, at the first, 
 83 a child, learning to walk, will have many a fall, the 
 Christian will find the law of mental association exposes
 
 21 
 
 him to the intrusion of unwelcome and diverting thoughts ; 
 yet, as he carries forward this spiritual discipline, he will 
 attain a more perfect command of his intellect, and an 
 ability to abstract himself from all earthly concerns. There 
 is, in this habit of extempore prayer, a far greater power 
 of isolation of gathering about the soul, in the midst of 
 a multitude, the- conscious presence of Jehovah, and the 
 awful realities of another world, than can be attained in 
 any other way. With but one sense open to the world, 
 and that fully occupied with the voice of prayer, the sup- 
 pliant follows the general course of the petition, rising 
 with it, adding to it, and applying it to his own case, as 
 his feelings and conscious wants dictate. If new emotions 
 rise, if new objects present themselves, he learns how to 
 incorporate them into the more public supplications, and 
 bear them before the mercy -seat in the chariot of his mute 
 petition. Quickened by the living voice, uttering the 
 spontaneous emotions of the heart, in language shaped by 
 feeling, and penetrated with it to an extent rarely attained 
 in the use of a stereotyped form, he pours forth the full- 
 ness of his own heart. He prays as did Paul on the sea 
 and amid the tempest, as did Christ in Gethsemane, as, 
 without a question, did the whole company of apostles 
 and early Christians ; in secret, he presents his own peti- 
 tions as they rise in his soul ; in public, he uses the prayer 
 and voice of the pastor as an assistant and guide, but not 
 as a substitute. 
 
 When, however, we use a form, and that is repeated by 
 many voices, and is also broken up, so as to involve 
 frequent changes of posture, then we multiply the 
 sources of distraction ; we open the eyes to read, the most 
 unnatural mode of prayer, giving the world another inlet
 
 22 
 
 to the soul; we bring a work of art between us and GocT; 
 we accustom ourselves to lean on it. It is ultimately far 
 more difficult for the soul to isolate itself, and hold perfect 
 spiritual communion with the Invisible, than when the 
 senses are closed to all without, and spirit with spirit 
 holds its unseen and silent converse. The form aggravates 
 the tendency, always strong in the human heart, to des- 
 cend from, the spiritual to the formal. Nothing can per- 
 manently hold back the spirit from this degeneracy, aside 
 from the influence of the Holy Ghost, so well as the in- 
 wrought habit of spiritual, and isolated, and extempore 
 prayer. 
 
 To the correctness of thi& reasoning, the world often 
 bears its unwilling testimony. In the formal style of 
 worship, we see men of earth joining as if they rendered 
 an acceptable service; while, in the other, they find brought 
 home to them a spirituality to which they are conscious of 
 being strangers, and with which they surely have no sym- 
 pathy. It is a work too high, too spiritual, to isolate 
 themselves for the direct work of prayer, and bring their 
 spirits individually to the throne of grace. It offends 
 them not to join with a multitude of voices in the responses 
 of a Liturgy, since this obliges them to undertake no work 
 of personal communion with Jehovah, and permits them 
 readily to sink their individual responsibility in the gen- 
 eral excitement and distracting influence of the multitude. 
 And thus, however admirably a Liturgy m;iy be arranged, 
 and however beautiful and truly excellent may be its parts, 
 and however it may assist the devotions of some who are 
 already spiritual; yet, as a means of training men to ap- 
 preciate the worship of the heart rather than of the lips, 
 of forcing home upon the unregener-ate their lost and
 
 t 23 
 
 irreligious condition, of imparting to Christians the power 
 of abstraction from the world, and command over their 
 own thoughts, and the most entire isolation of the soul, 
 it is not to be compared with the more natural and simple 
 method of extempore prayer. 
 
 Third, in arranging their mode of divine service, they 
 will make it such as will best adapt it to the varying wants 
 of a congregation. They will not predetermine just what 
 hymns shall be sung, what portions of Scripture shall be 
 read, or what objects shall alone be presented in prayer. 
 To do this, is to destroy one object in having a pastor; it is 
 to reduce him, so far as these services are concerned, to a 
 mere reading machine; it is to take away all judgment, 
 and consideration, and will on these points, and oblige him 
 to follow an iron rule, fixed with no reference to the par- 
 ticular condition of the congregation; it derogates from 
 the high idea of an apostolic pastor of one who, from his 
 own knowledge of the flock, is best prepared to select 
 subjects of discourse adapted to their state, portions of 
 the word, hymns, and psalms, corresponding therewith, 
 while he so shapes his prayers as to bring into view the 
 different and peculiar circumstances of his charge. In 
 public prayer, as in the preaching of the word, there are 
 some subjects always appropriate, yet there is a wide range 
 of other subjects, which demand either attention, or greater 
 or less prominence, according to the varying circumstances 
 of the congregation. There are times of sorrow and of 
 joy, times of worldliness and of deep solemnity, of health 
 and wide-spread sickness, of peace and war, which, as they 
 occur, should receive a special attention, and modify the 
 services of God's house. 
 
 In arranging their mode of worship, that it may most
 
 24 
 
 effectually accomplish the object of its institution? this 
 Christian Church will not prescribe for the pastor such an 
 order of things as to forestall his judgment, and prevent 
 him from selecting the means best adapted to render his 
 preaching effectual, and the service in harmony with the 
 condition of the people. Influenced by these and kind- 
 red reasons, seeing that, with some temporary advantages, 
 an elaborate Liturgy has so many disadvantages, and so 
 strong a tendency to formalism they reject it, and 
 choose the simpler form and order of the primitive 
 Church. 
 
 In the beginning of such a Church, it is obvious, that 
 an involved and artistically wrought service is unnatural and 
 inappropriate. Guided by the dictates of a pure and sim- 
 ple Christianity, not yet aspiring to the inventions of the 
 theater, and the contrivances of art, they will adopt the 
 more unartificial and obvious arrangements of the divine 
 service. Having one abundantly able to lead their devo- 
 tions, and preach the word of God, they feel not the want 
 of the prayers or discourses of other men, however wise, 
 and good, and distinguished they may have been.* 
 
 * In these remarks it is the author's design, briefly to justify our own 
 preference for the simple form of worship, characteristic of our Church, 
 in common with most of the other evangelical Churches. It is, how- 
 ever, a matter worthy of the serious reflection of those excellent men 
 in the Episcopal Church, who mourn over the prevalence of a semi- 
 Papacy in large portions of the Church, of their honest preference and 
 filial love, whether the tendency thus manifested to adopt the spirit, and 
 often the form, of Popery, is not due, in part, to the Liturgical training 
 of the people, as well as to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, in 
 the Prayer-book ; whether, had England adopted the simpler form, we 
 should have seen, in the very face of the Reformation, and to the scan- 
 dal of our common Protestantism, such a return to the practices of the 
 Mother of Abominations; whether, in short, the Liturgy does not train
 
 25 
 
 We have now traced the progress of this company of 
 believers, in the organization of a visible Church, unilt 
 we find them possessed of a creed, a pastor, and a definite 
 order of divine worship. But as they increase, the ne- 
 cessities of their condition will oblige the creation of other 
 offices. The time will come, when a house of worship 
 must be erected, and the secular concerns of the Church 
 will demand the special attention of individuals- qualified 
 to manage them. Provision must be made for the admini- 
 stration of the ordinances and the temporal support of the 
 pastor. Meanwhile, as numbers increase, there will rise 
 up within the Church itself, those who stand in need of 
 its support and guidance; those whom sickness, and be- 
 reavement, and the reverses of business, have deprived 
 of the ability to sustain themselves; widows and orphans, 
 to be nourished with fraternal tenderness, and guided with 
 parental wisdom, and cared for as members of the body of 
 Christ. 
 
 To attend to all these interests systematically and 
 thoroughly; to deliver the pastor from the weight of secu- 
 lar concerns, and the Church from the odium of not caring 
 for her own membership, it is found necessary to choose 
 good and able men, accustomed to such things, to act for 
 the Church as its stewards, to collect and disburse the 
 offerings of the people, and maintain thus a system of re- 
 lief and support, befitting brethren bound to bear each 
 other's burdens, and look not on their own things alone> 
 
 the people to a style of worship which prepares many minds for the 
 ascendancy of Popery itself. It is not in the spirit of controversy, but 
 as a subject worthy at least of examination by the friends of the Re- 
 deemer in that branch of the Church of Christ, that this suggestion is 
 made.
 
 26 ^ 
 
 but on those of others. Thus will the order of Deacons, 
 or secular ministers, arise an order not instituted to 
 preach, nor to be a stepping stone to the pastoral office; 
 not an order of mere licentiates, the heirs-expectant of a 
 priestly office, or a prelate's seat but an exclusively secular 
 order, elected and instituted to manage finances, and care 
 for widows and orphans, and minister to the poor, and 
 supply for the Church that department of its internal 
 police, without which it would be obviously defective, but 
 with which it becomes the most efficient organization in 
 the world, for the relief of the distressed, and the eleva- 
 vation of the poor.* 
 
 If, now, we could suppose this company of professed 
 discipbs to be, in the main, perfect in the exercise of 
 Christian feeling, and the exhibition of Christian character, 
 we might leave them to live and grow, and spread abroad 
 their influence in the world. But, instead of this, it is a 
 confessed fact, that these men are all imperfect; that some 
 of them, in all probability, are not at heart true disciples; 
 that no external organization can wholly prevent the oc- 
 currence of offenses against the purity of the Church, and 
 the law of Christ. Amid the temptations of the world, 
 and the still unvanquished corruptions that cling to our 
 fallen nature, the professed Christian lives ; and it will not 
 be strange, if occasionally not only the bounds of Christian 
 propriety, but the clear and stern commands of Jesus, 
 should be overleaped. But when the offense arises ; when 
 the law that upholds the purity and life of the Church is 
 broken; when the name of Jesus is openly dishonored by 
 his avowed disciples, a question at once arises, most ser- 
 
 * Phil. i. 1; 1 Tim. iii. 13-15; Acts vi. 1-6.
 
 27 
 
 ious in its character, and large in its influence for good or 
 evil, as it is answered. 
 
 Not to regard the offense at all, to neglect all discipline, 
 is to throw down the walls of the visible Church, to make 
 the outward and formal body of Christ the abode of dem- 
 ons; and as men are greatly influenced by that which is 
 visible by the sight of a visibly pure Church to recog- 
 nize the reality of religion, so, to destroy that visibility, 
 is, with the multitude, to destroy religion, and nullify one 
 of the strongest influences for the conversion of men. 
 How, then, and by whom, shall discipline be conducted, 
 and the offender tried? Shall the pastor be judge and 
 jury? But this is to make the ministry a despotism, and 
 the minister a despot; it is to intrust a power to an indi- 
 vidual, which he is very liable to abuse. All power is 
 open to abuse; but the experience of the world has shown 
 that, in these cases of public concern, there is a peculiar 
 liability to such abuse, when it is centered in a single 
 individual. Besides, the offense may respect the pastor 
 himself, or those for whom he feels a special sympathy; so 
 that he is apparently incapacitated, by his position and 
 relations, from sitting as sole judge in the case. For, how- 
 ever honest and upright he may be, yet, sharing in the 
 imperfection of all Christians, he is, like them, not insen- 
 sible to temptation, nor above all unhappy bias. Theoreti- 
 cally, there is no more beautiful system of law than that 
 which combines all the attributes of sovereignty in the 
 single man; but in this world, and among the imperfect, 
 none has proved more thoroughly opposite to the highest 
 welfare of the race. 
 
 Shall, then, the members of the Church, in full assem- 
 bly, resolve themselves into a court, and administer dis-
 
 28 
 
 cipline ? To this there are strong objections. If the one 
 man is liable to be swayed by feeling, and blinded by 
 prejudice, this is equally true of a multitude. A popular 
 assembly, unaccustomed to judge of evidence, impatient 
 of that slow and careful process, indispensable oftentimes 
 to the full elucidation of the facts, is, besides, peculiarly 
 susceptible to false impressions from the plausible and 
 ingenious advocate, and greatly exposed to be swayed by 
 impulse and momentary feeling. Not unfrequently, the 
 process of a public trial before such a court engenders 
 deep and lasting divisions, arrays the members of it in a 
 partisan struggle, and breathes into them a spirit of strife 
 infinitely worse than the original offense. There are cases 
 where it is essential to the interests of justice and right- 
 eousness, that long, minute, and painful examinations 
 should be gone through; where many witnesses must be 
 examined, and the law of evidence studied and applied 
 most carefully, before a just conclusion can be reached. 
 There are cases involving scenes wholly unfit for a public 
 investigation, on which none but those who are compelled, 
 by duty, should attempt to look. As a trial proceeds 
 before a popular assembly, if it be much protracted, it will 
 often happen, that all can not be present through its con- 
 tinuance, and the question may come at last to be decided 
 by many who have heard only a portion of the evidence, 
 or by a part only of the body. 
 
 Now, when you consider that a true Church of Christ 
 will embrace minds of every variety of intelligence, here 
 and there one admirably prepared to grapple with the 
 difficulties of discipline, while the mass, by their previous 
 pursuits, are unfitted for this important work; when you 
 consider the ease with which a popular body may be swayed ,
 
 29 
 
 and its passions appealed to, and decisions the most unjust 
 attained; when you see how easily the most trifling offense 
 may give rise to parties, and destroy the peace of the 
 Church; when you know how difficult it is to bring a large 
 number of persons, engaged in their own pressing pursuits, 
 to give the time and attention necessary to master a diffi- 
 cult case ; when you are sure that some of these offenses 
 are of a nature, the details of which it is a temptation and 
 a shame to spread before a public assembly when you 
 consider all these aspects of a purely congregational dis- 
 cipline, you will not wonder if this Church of which we are 
 speaking, should seek for some other mode of trying 
 offenses,, and securing general purity and order. She 
 might be told, indeed, that her members must be supposed 
 to be honest, though imperfect; that, by this process, they 
 would be trained to intelligent action, and a just judgment. 
 In answer, she might say, "The very necessity of disci- 
 pline, shows our liability not only to err, but to sin ; while 
 our honesty of purpose does not secure us either the 
 requisite intelligence, the freedom from the impulses of 
 passion, or insensibility to the sight of corruption; while, 
 as a Church, we are in a state too variable, and the res- 
 ponsibility is too generally diffused, ever to lead us to 
 indulge the Utopian anticipation of seeing the multitude 
 fully qualified for such a work as this." 
 
 Wherever true freedom has advanced in the world, it 
 has fled alike from the despot and the town-meeting, as 
 judge and jury; it has created, as its chief triumph, and 
 mightiest bulwark of human right?, a tribunal combining 
 the intelligent understanding of law, the practical sense 
 that judges of matters of fact, with as much cool inde- 
 pendence and impartiality of feeling, as can well be at-
 
 tained by any system which fallible men are to work. That 
 tribunal, in all states where true freedom exists, is not 
 the public assembly, however it may be distinguished for 
 honesty ar.d patriotism ; it is not the single judge or the 
 solitary monarch, however incorruptible and wise he may 
 be supposed to be. It is the judge and the selected jury, 
 set apart for a special work, sworn to administer the law 
 and judge of the evidence, according to truth and right- 
 eousness. This tribunal combines the highest qualities for 
 the best administration of justice. It is the result of the 
 experience of ages ; is the noblest jewel, wrenched from 
 the hand of absolute power, and set in the coronal of free- 
 dom. Yea, it is more than a jewel, an ornament of splendor; 
 it is the strongest barrier against the encroachments of 
 the sovereign of the one side, and the licentiousness of the 
 popular assembly on the other; against the intolerance, and 
 the ambition, and the pride of the first, and the prejudice, 
 and pasdon, and haste of the second, 
 
 NoWj the body of brethren before us, see open to them 
 one of three courses. They may retain all discipline in 
 their own hands, or commit it to the pastor, or select a few 
 of their OAvn number, known to be intelligent, devoted, im- 
 partial, and active, who, in conjunction with the pastor as 
 their chairman, shall be solemnly bound to administer it 
 according to the rules which the 'Church shall adopt rules 
 frarnad to secure the rights of individuals, and guard against 
 oppression. Aside from the difficulties attending the first 
 two methods of discipline, they find in this third body a 
 tribunal, approved by the experience of ages ; by which, 
 without noise, or confusion, or party strife, the necessary 
 arrangements can readily be made, and the case patiently 
 tried. They know that men thus selected will usually be
 
 31 
 
 less subject to the impulses of passion and sympathy than 
 a popular assembly ; that they will become accustomed to 
 judge of evidence, and acquire a facility in the dispatch of 
 business ; that, as it is their appropriate business, they will 
 be far more likely to see that discipline is duly adminis- 
 tered, than when it is left to every member of the Churcli ; 
 that they can more easily heal difficulties in their origin, 
 and bring back the wandering, by the very quietness with 
 which they proceed ; that they will be able to conduct 
 trials, which, if made public, 'Would contaminate rather than 
 purify, in a manner to save the Church from an offense 
 greater than the original ; that they can give a more pa- 
 tient and protracted attention to difficult cases, demanding 
 nice discrimination and a knowledge of the law of evidence, 
 than could possibly be given in a crowd of Church mem- 
 bers. Moreover, they know that a popular assembly is only 
 in a loose sense a government, and that all such bodies 
 mast, in any case, provide executive officers, who shall pre- 
 pare the business, and afterward supervise the execution of 
 their decrees. It is a matter of fact that, when thedisci- 
 pline is retained in such an assembly, yet to render it effec- 
 tual, the principal part of it is often delegated to individuals 
 and committees, selected for the purpose. 
 
 With these views, they resolve- to elect a board of Elders 
 for the administration of discipline -and government, as the 
 tribunal, above all others, most conservative of their liber- 
 ties, and best adapted to promote the peace and prosperity 
 of the Church. In this body, the pastor sits simply as 
 moderator and expounder of the law, on a perfect equality, 
 in respect to discipline, with all the other members- a 1 ! 
 are overseers, bishops, presbyters, ciders ; combining the 
 intelligence of the ministry with the intelligence and prac-
 
 32 
 
 tical tact and general knowledge of the laity. To this body 
 the Church commits not only the general disipline of the 
 house of God, but the admission of new members, and all 
 such other matters as to them may seem best. In the 
 absence of the pastor, it is usually incumbent on them to 
 see that his place is properly filled, by appointing either 
 one of then* own number, or some other person, to that 
 duty.* In this manner, the general arrangements for 
 worship and discipline are most effectually secured; and 
 we see the visible Church rising before us in the order and 
 harmony of the human form, with an erect and healthful 
 trunk, and limbs to execute its purposes, while Christ is 
 its glorious head. It is neither body alone, nor feet, nor 
 hands alone; but, by the proper casting of parts and 
 division of offices, every member hath some special work 
 assigned him, in the performance of which, the whole body 
 maketh increase unto the edifying itself in all Christian 
 graces. Here is a company of believers, who thus, ad- 
 vancing step by step in the path of mutual edification, at 
 length perfect their organization, with direct reference to 
 their felt wants, and stand forth, before the world, a full- 
 grown church of Christ 
 
 We have thus seen the rise of a single Church. We 
 view it attaining as complete an organization for the great 
 purposes designed, as could well be, while standing by 
 itself. We are now to take it out of this isolation, and 
 introduce it to other Churches which, in like manner, 
 have sprung up around it. Now, very much the same 
 causes which operated to form a single Church, will impel 
 these Churches, as their numbers multiply, to unite for the 
 
 *1 Tim. v. 17; Acts.xv. 25, xx. 28; Rom. xii. 7, 8; 1 Cor. xii. 28; 
 Heb. xiii. 17; 1 Thess. v. 12.
 
 accomplishment of certain objects, and the prevention of 
 certain evils, for which, while independent, they are not 
 folly adequate* The presence of other Churches alters the 
 position of the Church whose progress we have thus far 
 traced, and obliges it to determine in what way they are 
 to be treated. As yet, they are comparatively ignorant of 
 each other ; they feel, however, a common want 4he want 
 of general fellowship and combination against the world ; 
 they feel that, in the operation of their independent or- 
 ganizations, there are some evils and defects, which a more 
 general union might remove or supply. Impelled by these 
 views, the Churches within a convenient distance agree to 
 a mutual conference for the adjustment of some plan, by 
 which, while their individual efficiency is promoted, they 
 may be able unitedly to accomplish what surpasses their 
 individual capacity. By chosen delegates, they meet to- 
 gether. The first great principle which they adopt is that 
 which lies at the basis of all constitutional freedom, the 
 principle of representation. Instead of having an associ- 
 ation of pastors alone, to devise and act for the Churches, 
 they resolve that it is important the Churches should be 
 associated as well as the pastors ; and to secure this ob- 
 ject, that every church shall be entitled to send a repre- 
 sentative to the contemplated body. While the pastor 
 may have his seat, the Church, through her representative, 
 must also have her seat. If measures are to be adopted, 
 and plans laid, that are to affect the interests of all the 
 Churches ; if a union is to be formed, available for the 
 purposes desired ; if it is to be anything more than a 
 loose, irresponsible body, without efficiency, and without 
 consideration, then is it a fundamental principle that each 
 Church, however few in number or weak in influence, shall 
 3
 
 34 
 
 not only have her pastor present, but also her elder, 
 through whom she may speak ; by whom her rights may 
 be maintained, her interests promoted, and her views de- 
 clared. This principle is fundamental to Christian liberty 
 in ecclesiatical organizations. Neither the ministry alone 
 nor the laity alone can form the, ablest, freest, and most 
 efficient organization. There is in the ministry often a 
 tendency to dogmatism, and in the laity, sometimes, an 
 equally strong disposition toward the opposite extreme. 
 The union of the two in an ecclesiastical body combines 
 the elements of a healthy progress and a stable union. The 
 two modify each other,- and minister to the strength of the 
 whole fabric, and adapt it more perfectly to its noble pur- 
 pose. 
 
 Having thus, by a simple rule, settled the composition 
 of the body that is to serve as their bond of union, they 
 proceed to define its functions and -powers. First, each of 
 of these Churches has a distinct creed of its own. But, 
 in order to harmonious action, it is essential that there 
 should be entire confidence in the rectitude of each other's 
 religious views. The same necessity which compels the 
 adoption of a creed in the individual Church, operates 
 here with equal force. They agree, therefore, upon the 
 terms of communion, they adopt the same general con- 
 fession of faith. This at once creates uniformity of belief 
 throughout the entire circle of associated Churches. 
 Members may pass from one to the other, without hesita- 
 tion ; and the fellowship of a Christian household be felt 
 and cherished by all. As these Churches, when isolated, 
 are liable to suffer from the efforts of crafty and design- 
 ing men, who privily would bring in damnable heresies, 
 lead astray the weak, and cause multitudes -to swerve from
 
 35 
 
 the faith, so, to assist them in resisting such efforts, these 
 Churches grant to their own representatives, in presbyte- 
 ry assembled, a supervisory power a right to inspect 
 their state, and admonish them of the wrong, and correct 
 such evils of this kind as may exist. They do not in this 
 create a tyranny, but a legitimate government, in which 
 they are all represented, in which the finest elements of 
 freedom are happily combined. They unite in presenting 
 a broader front to the advances of error, and repelling 
 those who seek to destroy their original terms of commun- 
 ion, and so turn them from the faith. 
 
 Second, it is found that their mode of ordaining the 
 ministry of the Gospel, however legitimate in itself, is yet 
 connected with many and great inconveniences. Ordina- 
 tion is the recognition of certain qualifications, given by 
 Christ for the ministry, and the solemn setting apart of 
 an individual thus gifted to that high office. It has in it 
 no "opus operatum" it does not bestow the grace and 
 sanctity necessary to the discharge of this office ; it recog- 
 nizes them as already, in a good measure, possessed; it 
 beholds a man whom Christ has set apart to the ministry, 
 and it gives the sanction of the ordaining power to the 
 exercise of these ministerial gifts, in all the appropriate 
 duties of this great work. Now, it is obvious that, while 
 a Church may ordain a man for itself, and recognize him 
 as a minister of Christ, and clothe him with authority for 
 that purpose, so far as she is concerned, yet the validity 
 and authority of his ordination, beyond her pale, will be 
 in exact proportion to the estimate in which she is held 
 as a Church, and to the qualifications which manifestly 
 exist in the person she has set apart to the work of the 
 ministry. In other words, it is only so far as her authori-
 
 36 
 
 ty to ordain is recognized, that such an ordination will be 
 respected and held as valid. But the independent Church 
 is, perhaps, weak and small, composed of those who are 
 not particularly qualified to pronounce upon the qualifica- 
 tions of a candidate for the . ministry. Unaccustomed to 
 the work, and with no special or known qualifications for 
 it, she selects the future preacher of the Gospel, and or- 
 dains him to that office, and sends him forth to preach. 
 Now, who is to recognize this man as a minister, beyond 
 the Church that has commissioned him? Of this Church 
 little has gone abroad, and what is known is far from in- 
 spiring confidence in any ordination of her's. It follows, 
 therefore, that out of her bounds her regularly ordained 
 minister derives no authority from his ordination, ceases 
 to be regarded as a minister, just as truly as a Presby- 
 terian or an Episcopal bishop is not recognized as such in 
 the Vatican. His influence is, consequently, limited; 
 and it may be long before he will be able, amid such dis- 
 heartening circumstances, to commend himself to the 
 Church at large, by the actual demonstration of the exis- 
 tence in him of the sterling qualifications of a minister 
 of Christ. Besides, an individual Church, in addition to 
 her want of a wide-spread influence and a power to com- 
 mend her ordinations to those without her limits, may not 
 find among her own number one whom she thinks really 
 called of God to this ministry ; while another Church may 
 have a dozen endowed pre-eminently with all the gifts 
 and graces essential to this high office. It is, therefore, 
 exceedingly desirable that the authority to ordain minis- 
 ters of the Gespel should be vested in a body of such 
 character and influence, and in such relation to a consid- 
 erable body of Churches, as will enable them to select the
 
 37 
 
 most suitable candidates, and cause their ordination to be 
 generally recognized and respected among them and the 
 world. For this purpose, it is determined that this re- 
 presentative body of their pastors and elders shall take 
 upon themselves the responsibility of selecting and licens- 
 ing suck men as, in their judgment, possess the chief 
 qualifications for the work of the ministry. But in order 
 to secure the judgment of the Church at large upon their 
 qualifications, except in rare cases, they are not at once 
 ordained. They are sent forth to preach as probationers, 
 to be proved in the pulpit, to be tested in the actual work 
 of the ministry ; and when the Churches have borne their 
 testimony to the fitness of these Candidates for this office, 
 or when individual Churches shall desire their services, 
 they are then solemnly ordained as ministers of the Gos- 
 pel. But should it be "ascertained that, through infirmi- 
 ties of spirit, or great deficiency in ministerial gifts, they 
 were not acceptable to the people, and not adapted to be 
 useful in that sphere of labor, then their licensure is 
 recalled, and they fall back into another department of 
 Christian duty. In this manner, these confederated Chur- 
 ches propose to secure for themselves an able, devoted 
 and successful ministry a ministry that shall bear the 
 commendation of their united wisdom, and command the 
 recognition and respect of those who are without. Mean- 
 while, as learning is to be associated with piety, in order 
 to prepare men most successfully to preach the word of 
 life, they avail themselves of their united strength, to 
 establish academies, colleges, and seminaries of theologi- 
 cal science. Associated, they thus effect what is beyond 
 the power of isolated Churches, and see rising among 
 them a ministry, resplendent in its learning and ripe in
 
 38 
 
 piety, useful at home, respected abroad, and prepared to 
 extend the religion of Jesus into the distant and dark 
 places of the earth.* 
 
 Having thus provided for the increase, the ordination, 
 and perpetuity of the ministry, these Churches proceed 
 to consider the subject of a mutual discipline. They lay 
 down, as fundamental to their union, these two principles: 
 First, that every member of their body, be he minister, 
 elder, deacon, or private Christian, shall be accounted in- 
 nocent, until he is proved guilty, and never be cut off 
 from his connection with the Church, except after a fair 
 tried. Second, that in order to secure such a trial, all 
 proper means of defense shall be allowed, and the case 
 conducted according to known rules, designed to secure 
 the unfolding of the truth in the fullest manner. These 
 principles underlie all their disciplinary arrangements ; 
 they are the foundations for the strongest ramparts around 
 individual right and liberty- foundations such as the 
 freest civil governments have laid, on which to erect the 
 noble fabric of political freedom. In order to give the 
 fullest effect to these principles, this confederated Church, 
 jealous of power, knowing that the best men may err, and 
 the coolest sometimes be partial, resolve that, if any of 
 her members feel aggrieved by the decision of a session; 
 if he feels that, through ignorance, or partiality, or mis- 
 take, he has been unjustly dealt with,* then he may enjoy 
 the privilege of appeal to this representative body of 
 ministers and elders, in presbytery assembled, for a review 
 of his case. Nay, so large and full is this liberty, so 
 solicitous is she that none of her children may wrongfully 
 
 * 1 Tim. iv. 14 ; Acts XT. 2, 3, 4, 6, 22.
 
 39 
 
 suffer, that she permits a second and a third appeal from 
 the judgment of a local body to a larger gathering of re- 
 presentatives, convened in synod or assembly. But while 
 she concedes to him this privilege, for the more perfect 
 attainment of justice, she declares that he shall be solemn- 
 ly bound by the final decision that he shaD not put his 
 brethren to the trouble of giving him a full and impartial 
 trial, and then 'treat the decision as mere advice, and so 
 make a farce of ecclesiastical discipline before the world. 
 In this way, the privilege of appeal from acts of preju- 
 dice, or passion, or mistake, is granted in the Church, as 
 well as in the state ; and a person is not compelled to 
 suffer wrong through the unhappy decision of a single 
 Church, or pastor, or session.* He may carry his cause 
 from this lower tribunal before his brethren at large, who, 
 
 * We once heard an esteemed clergyman publicly argue in favor of 
 discipline by single Churches, because, "when a thing was done, then 
 it loos done" an argument as strong in favor of despotism as the Neros 
 and Napoleons of absolute monarchy could desire. This very fact, that 
 when discipline is thus done, there is no' retreat for injured innocence, 
 no appeal to a less prejudiced tribunal, from the acts of haste, or passion, 
 or ignorance, is the strong argument alike against the decisions of a 
 judge Lynch or a judge Nero, of an assembled multitude or a single 
 man. A despotism, whether of the king or the people, is the simplest 
 government in the world. Liberty seeks for checks and balances, for 
 the machinery of courts, and forms, and rules, and appeals for the 
 utmost license of investigation and review, and argument, that at length 
 the right may stand forth in the clear sunshine, and the wrong may 
 reveal its hideous features. And though, at times, ingenious wicked- 
 ness may double and twist, and seek to escape through these salutary 
 forms, yet, in the main, true freedom is maintained, and innocence vin- 
 dicated, and crime punished. It is the glory of Presbyterianiem that 
 it not only gives an accused member a trial, but that, by a most admi- 
 rable set of rules, it seeks to make that a fair trial; and then, by th 
 right of appeal, it multiplies the means for vindicating the right, and 
 ecuring the innocent against all wrong.
 
 40 
 
 removed from the scene, may investigate it with all the 
 coolness of an unbiased judgment, and decide it in cir- 
 cumstances as favorable for the attainment of justice as, 
 ever exist in this world. 
 
 In like manner, should a pastor ever be chargeable with 
 crime, or difficulties of a serious character arise between 
 him and the Church of which he has charge, then is it 
 part of the same general policy, that he shall be tried, or 
 the causes of trouble investigated, not by the Church it- 
 self, nor by the session, who, from their relation to him, 
 may be in a position the least favorable for a correct de- 
 cision ; but by the body that holds the ordaining power 
 by the Churches in their associated capacity, by the pres- 
 bytery of which he is a member. According to that old 
 and just maxim of common-law, he is to be judged by his 
 peers, and the same privilege of appeal granted, as his 
 protection against an unjust and a hasty decision, which 
 is given to the humblest member of the Church. 
 
 I have thus, in brief, reviewed some of the leading 
 principles and modes of discipline, according to which 
 these Christian societies seek to aid each other in main- 
 taining, unimpaired, the faith and liberties of the house- 
 hold of faith. Thus associated together, they regard it 
 as a binding duty they owe to each other and the world, 
 by united efforts to spread the Gospel at home and abroad; 
 to organize new Churches, and supply them, in their in- 
 fancy, with the preaching of the word ; to guard against 
 the efforts of designing men, who seek to introduce among 
 them turmoil and strife ; to give the influence of their 
 union to all wholesome reforms ; and in all appropriate 
 ways promote each other's peace, and build each other up 
 in the faith, and love and practice of the religion of Jesus.
 
 41 
 
 For such objects, these Churches agree to this intimate, 
 fraternal, and apostolic plan of union. As independent 
 states, each Church has its own rights, its own territory, 
 its own government; as a federal union, they are so con- 
 nected together as to form one larger state, united in its 
 aims, its discipline, its influence, in opposition to all that 
 is evil, and in favor of all that is good. They present to 
 the world the vision of a true republican union, constitu- 
 ted not for the aggrandizement of the few, but solely for 
 the edification and usefulness of the many, that thus we 
 may more effectually realize the spirit of a Christian uni- 
 ty, and work at greater advantage in fulfilling the com- 
 mand of our aseended Master, Go ye into all the ivorld, 
 and preach the Gospel to every creature. 
 
 Such, in its outlines, is the form of that Church under 
 whose broad constitution it is our privilege to live, to con- 
 stitute one of whose higher courts we are this day assem- 
 bled. Behold, first, its order ! See how, in this system, 
 provision is most fully made for the regular and quiet 
 progress of the people of God ; for the orderly develop- 
 ment of the Church, the ministrations and ordinances of 
 the Gospel, the training up and ordination of an efficient 
 ministry, the regular discipline of the house of the Lord, 
 the planting of new Churches among the- destitute, and 
 the onward progress of a Christian people in all good 
 works ; how to each individual there may be some work 
 assigned ; and thus, as the several parts of the body, all 
 work together in promoting one end. 
 
 God loves not confusion. "Let all things be done de- 
 cently and in order "is a rule no less essential in the Church 
 than in the family and the state. Behold, then, the order 
 of our house !. how beautiful ! how appropriate ! how sim- 
 ple, yet how comprehensive !
 
 V 42 
 
 Second. Behold how admirably this system conserves 
 religious liberty ! It hath two great principles which are 
 fundamental to the highest style of constitutional and 
 republican freedom. 1. The principle of representation. 
 All power goes up from the Churches. In hierarchical 
 and other systems, hostile to liberty, the power descends 
 from the ministry to the Churches. In ours it ascends. 
 The Churches choose all their own officers, elect their 
 own representatives, and have a voice in all laws and rules 
 by which they are to be affected. The republican princi- 
 ple of representation prevails in the constitution of all 
 our ecclesiastical bodies above the original ordinary Church 
 meeting. 2. The principle, that every person is entitled 
 to a fair trial according to the form of liberty which the 
 Churches themselves have adopted. No man can rightly, or 
 constitutionally, or legally be condemned and cast out until 
 after a fair trial, in due form, before his peers, and after 
 the full privilege of appeal has been allowed him, and all 
 the means of a legitimate defense have been exhausted. 
 The poorest and the lowliest member of this Church has 
 here precisely the same rights with the most powerful. 
 Be the offender a poor son of Africa, with the brand of 
 centuries of oppression and degradation upon his body, he 
 has a right to stand up here, with the descendent of princes, 
 and enjoy the privilege of the same rules, and avail him- 
 self of the same bulwarks of defense, and call to his aid 
 the same eloquence and force of argument granted to his 
 more favored brothers. This strong refuge of liberty is 
 inwrought into the constitution of our Church. Without 
 it, liberty would be a name, not a fact, both in Church and 
 state. These two principles of representation and trial by 
 their own chosen jury, covering the rights of all our mem- 
 
 i.
 
 43 
 
 bership, form the abutments of our ecclesiastical system. 
 Let either one be removed, and its integrity is destroyed; 
 it remains one-sided, inconsistent, and unable to sustain 
 the glorious arch of religious liberty. This is the finest 
 discipline for- the education of freemen. A true Presby- 
 terian will never suffer himself to be defrauded of the 
 rights of his manhood. He learns "here the great princi- 
 ples of liberty; they have pervaded the Church and 
 breathed around the fireside from his childhood. He has 
 learnt to bow to no ecclesiastical despotism ; he has learnt 
 that neither priest nor monarch has a right to tyrannize 
 over his conscience ; that power comes immediately from 
 the Church, and not from the officers of the Church alone ; 
 that it is not a company of pastors or deacons, or any 
 mere officials, that constitute the Church, save as they 
 may be selected to represent and maintain her interests, 
 but that as the members of the body are essential to its 
 perfectness. so the entire Church, in its most perfect state, 
 embraces all the members of Christ's house with those 
 whom they have set forth as their executives. Cherishing 
 such views, they will not brook either ecclesiastical or civil 
 despotism ; they will go forth a noble army of confessors 
 without the camp of the oppressor ; and, as did Scotland's 
 chosen hosts when they trod beneath their feet the jewel- 
 ed coronet of Victoria as the emblem of a spiritual sov- 
 reignty, and disowned the authority of the state in the 
 house of God as the lord of their conscience, so will their 
 true brethren, the world over, while respecting authority 
 in its legitimate sphere, and loyal as any others to the 
 constitution and the law, resist an ecclesiastical or a civil 
 dictatorship, and proclaim war against it as the enemy of 
 God and man.
 
 44 
 
 Third. Behold its efficiency! Its order and its freedom 
 are not merely a theory. They do much to form the char- 
 acter for active labor, for large enterprise, for intelligent, 
 steady progress. They ally it with all the elements of 
 strength, and reform, and purity. The general order of 
 the house of Christ is essential to the most effective work- 
 ing of its members. A system such as ours does not fore- 
 stall individual action, and throw the labor which should 
 be borne by many upon the shoulders of the few. Instead 
 of this, while it secures general order, and provides speci- 
 fically for more general wants, it yet leaves the mass free 
 to operate in all the various modes open to them, and for 
 which special gifts and graces may give them a peculiar 
 fitness. It is no more essential to the development of the 
 energy and life and greatest efficiency of a Church, that 
 all its members should act as elders and governors, than 
 that they should all be pastors and deacons; and the same 
 argument which would commit the discipline of God's 
 house to the entire body of the people, in order to oblige 
 them to labor and increase their efficiency, and deepen 
 their interest in the Church and its operations, would 
 abolish the ministry of the deacon and the pastor, and so 
 constitute the Church a body without limbs and executive 
 powers. Aside from the work properly belonging to these 
 officers, there is a wide field for individual action in the 
 social meetings, in Sabbath schools and Bible classes, in 
 direct efforts for the conversion of men, in the visiting of 
 the distressed and the sick, and in all the various ways in 
 which an active piety will seek to walk. The committing 
 of the discipline of the Church to a board of elders is a 
 great relief to the body of the Church from a business 
 little adapted to promote their spirituality, and which, by
 
 45 
 
 absorbing their time, diverts the mind and heart from other 
 labors more directly connected with the upbuilding of the 
 kingdom of Jesus. And thus they are left free to enter into 
 the harvest as reapers, and stimulated to fill up their 
 measure of labor for the ingathering of souls. There is in 
 this our system as much of stimulus to individual labor, 
 as much throwing the burden of responsibility for the on- 
 ward progress of religion upon the entire membership, as 
 wide an opening for such action as is best adapted to pro- 
 mote the spirituality of the Church and the salvation of 
 men, as in any other known ecclesiastical constitution. 
 All Churches, whatever be their general system of opera- 
 tion, are found practically to depend much, for their 
 efficiency, upon the character of the pastor and other of- 
 ficers; but, setting aside this great element of power, we 
 have yet to find the system that, as a system, combines 
 more elements of real efficiency and power of orderly de- 
 velopment, and liberty of profitable action and tendencies 
 to build up the people in an intelligent, progressive piety, 
 than our own. 
 
 Methodism owes its power, as a system, to its popular 
 worship, free to the extremest license, and the stern discipline 
 of its ministry the principles of freedom and of despo- 
 tism, both in excess, yet combining so as in a measure to 
 balance each other. John Wesley was the most wonderful 
 master of ecclesiastical strategy, Loyola not excepted, the 
 world has ever seen. Confessedly, his was not the strategy 
 of that elder John whom the Lord so loved. Yet, with all 
 its antagonistic ultraisms, and its commingling of oppo- 
 sites, I rejoice in the work which it has accomplished; and 
 while I cannot regard it as the system which best suits 
 the highest state of the Church, or which is best adapted
 
 46 
 
 to build up the people in the intelligent understanding of 
 God's word, and lift ihem to the noblest position in social 
 life, I yet see before it a great work, and bid it God speed 
 in its accomplishment. The prelatical and liturgical 
 Churches owe their power, so far as the outward form is 
 concerned, on the one hand, to the fiction of antiquity and 
 official holiness, and apostolical authority ; on the other, 
 to their missals and liturgies, beautiful as mere works of 
 art, but not full of the highest power to unfold the Christian 
 life and promote the spiritual efficiency or the membership; 
 the products not of apostolic simplicity, and spontaneous, 
 deep-breathing, soul-subduing Christianity, in the fullness 
 and life of its youth, but confessedly created, in the main, 
 by those ages when art reared cathedrals, and the Gregory's 
 developed the science o music when the liturgy, and 
 the choir, and the cathedral, and the mass, and the elaborate 
 and gorgeous ritual all had their grand development. But 
 our efficiency is not of these elements ; it is not of these 
 outward and elaborate works of art ; nor do we believe 
 that, under such systems, the Church of Christ can ever 
 attain its highest efficiency or its finest development. 
 With us there is a simple worship, designed to train the 
 soul to a close walk with God, and give it the power of 
 spiritual communion; an order of offices and arrangement 
 of duties that , spring from the elements of freedom, yet 
 form the best guard against its excess, and open the largest 
 field for individual labor ; an intelligent ministry, selected, 
 not to serve tables, but to preach the Gospel as its chief 
 Work : these are the elements of our ecclesiastical system. 
 We rely most upon the faithful, intelligent preaching of 
 the. Gospel; we rear a platform where the most intelligent 
 may meet with the humblest and most illiterate where
 
 47 
 
 the learned shall find that which will purify and refine his 
 spirit, the unlearned that which will elevate him to the 
 same position. We seek, in all the arrangements of God's 
 house, to level upward; to make all our children both sin- 
 cere and clear-minded Christians, thoroughly instructed in 
 the faith ; to make all men feel their true nobility, their 
 true liberty, the heirship to which they may attain on 
 earth, and the inheritance to which they may attain in 
 heaven. We claim not for the discipline of our Church an 
 energy that will render its professors superior to all the 
 infirmities of the age in which they may live j it is not 
 the prerogative of any mere system to do this. But we 
 do claim for it an adaptation to the most advanced state of 
 society, and a fitness for elevating man and spreading 
 abroad the Gospel of Christ, equal, to say the least, to any 
 form of Church government the world has yet seen. Its 
 labors for the good of man stand forth; and its victories in 
 behalf of all that is good have sounded abroad over the 
 earth. Behold what presbytery hath done for the world I 
 What battles she hath fought for liberty of conscience 1 
 for Christianity against a rampant infidelity 1 for truth 
 against the combined forces of error 1 for order againbt the 
 tumultuous impulses of popular passion I for the crown 
 and cause of Christ against the world \ Let her sons under- 
 stand their position, their privilege, and their power ; let 
 them avail themselves of all the advantages which so ad- 
 mirable a system has placed within their reach ; let them 
 realize the strength of their organization, and its noble 
 tendencies- towards a steady progress, and its varied capac- 
 ity of adaptation to all states of society ; let them see m 
 it a mighty bulwark for the Christian faith, resisting, on 
 the one side, the shock of a wild and stormy Indepen-
 
 48 
 
 dency, that in its licentiousness would open wide all the 
 doors of error ; and on the other, the marshaled and trained 
 array of a Papal despotism, that would cover the earth 
 with ignorance and spiritual bondage ; let them look to 
 it, not as in itself powerful, but as that which allows and 
 enables them to put forth the highest degree of power in 
 the service of their glorious Lord ; let them heed not the 
 false prophets and evil diviners who cry, Lo, here ! lo, 
 there ! but studying more deeply the simplicity and free- 
 dom of their ecclesiastical constitution, let them give to 
 its development, in the increase of the Church of Christ, 
 that energy of heart and mind, which the condition of our 
 land and our position among the other evangelical Churches 
 imperatively require. Then shall we see results most hal- 
 lowed and noble attending our ministry, and our beloved 
 Church shall hold the foremost position among the hosts 
 of the Lord, and lead the van in the assault upon the king- 
 dom of darkness ; and to her shall be gathered the fervor 
 of humble piety, the might of a thoroughly educated 
 membership, the refinement of a noble literature, the 
 spirituality of a simple4iearted faith in the Redeemer ; 
 and millions, in all parts of the globe, shall look up to her 
 with affection, and rejoice in her as the mother of bless- 
 ings, rich as heaven, and lasting as eternity, * 
 
 * The progress of the Presbyterian Church in this country has been 
 great, and the work it has accomplished in behalf of liberty, of educa- 
 tion, and all the elements of a Christian civilization, has been greater 
 even than its success in the acquisition of numbers. Beginning late, 
 in Philadelphia and New York, with all the South and West oponing 
 before it, assisted, in part, by devoted men from New England, it has 
 spread abroad through the Union, gathering into its congregations a 
 mass of intelligent and stable piety, maintaining everywhere the char- 
 meter of the ministry for sound learning and simple hearted religion,
 
 49 
 
 In conclusion, permit me to remark upon these princi* 
 pies in connection with two large denominations of Chris- 
 tians, to whom we are most intimately related; the ortho* 
 dox Congregationalists, and the brethren who, in 1837 
 and 1838, forsook the original platform of our Presbyte- 
 rian Church, and organized themselves on a new founda- 
 tion. I wish to say here that we do not confound the 
 orderly and semi-presbyterial Congregationalism, of New 
 England, with Independency. Independency, east and 
 west, is one of the refuges of error and a worldly policy, 
 Whoever would break away from wholesome restraint 
 whoever would undermine the holy truths of Christianity, 
 and find a religion that shall allow him the utmost license 
 of opinion and practice, generally flies to Independency.* 
 
 holding in check the opposite tendencies to radicalism and perpetual 
 stagnation of Methodism and prelacy, thus rendering them both more 
 efficient in evangalizing men, building up colleges, and academies, and 
 schools with a strong hand, leading the way in all genuine reforms, 
 without loosening itself from those great principles which, although 
 old, are yet true, and essential to the final success of all just changes ; 
 and so presenting itself in harmony with American republicanism, as 
 more than any other identified with American institutions, and a fair 
 representative of the best elements of American character. 
 
 * It would be curious to trace out the affinities of error and worldli- 
 ness with ecclesiastical systems. With which system of the three, 
 presbytery, prelacy, or independency, does error most readily coalesce? 
 We apprehend it will be found with independency and prelacy. Uni- 
 tarianism is independent ; Universalism is independent; Rationalism, 
 as soon as it reaches this country, beyond the connection of Church and 
 State, is independent; Christlanism is independent; Campbellism is 
 independent ; .Oberlinism is independent. Presbyterianism in England, 
 and the little there was in Boston, first became independent before it 
 went over to Socinianism. See Foote's Sketches of Virginia, page 250. 
 
 On the other hand, that large class, who, in religion, would have their 
 thinking done for them, who desire repose from the stirring conflict of 
 thought and speech, who mistake sect for Christianity, and form for 
 
 4
 
 . 50 
 
 lJut orthodox Congregationalism, so far from sympathising 
 with such things in spirit, and illustrating them in prac- 
 tice, resorts, generally, to the very principles of our eccle- 
 siastical government in the conduct of much of her dis- 
 cipline. Who preach the gospel to them? Not any man 
 whom the spirit may seem to move, but chosen ministers 
 of Christ. Who ordains their clergy? Not the individual 
 Church, however intelligent and influential it may be, but 
 in general, either the associated pastors, or these in 
 connection with the delegates from the Churches chosen 
 to act as a kind of presbytery for this specific purpose- 
 Who administer the temporalities? Deacons. Who de j 
 cide controversies between Churches between pastors 
 and Churches between opposing parties in a Church? A 
 council of ministers, or of ministers and delegates from 
 the Churches. Who decide theological disputes? Pasto- 
 ral associations, or that disguised presbytery, a Consocia- 
 tion. How is discipline, in difficult cases, conducted? By 
 Committees appointed to do, in part, the work of a session. 
 In these things the principles of presbytery are more or 
 less acted on -loosely it is true, yet really.* And when- 
 
 substance, and would gain heaven by outward compliances and rules ; 
 these most naturally surrender themselves to the theatrical pomp and 
 dignity of Puseyism and the Papacy. 
 
 * If it be said that, while this is true, the theoretic independency of 
 each Church is maintained, that all this comes in the shape of advice, 
 and that the Churches are at liberty to receive or reject it, then it may 
 be asked, in turn, what is the worth of a theoretic independency, when, 
 in point of fact, there is no practical independency? The union of 
 Churches in this land is voluntary, and so any Church can, if it chooses, 
 separate itself from the ecclesiastical body with which it is connected. 
 Presbyterians recognize the fact that a single organization may be a 
 Church, and is one as truly before, as after it unites with presbytery. : 
 the theory amounts to nothing, while the practice is to so great an
 
 ever it fails to recognize and act upon them, it shows 
 signs of weakness. It is only through, at least, a partial 
 recognition of them, that error is shut out, and discipline 
 perfected* Presbyterianism takes these principles and 
 systematizes them ; it corrects the irregularity, while it 
 leaves the great principles of true Church liberty unim- 
 paired- It was for this reason President Edwards, in 
 1750, when corresponding with President Davies respect- 
 ing his admission into the Presbyterian Church, could 
 write thus, "As to my subscribing to the substance of the 
 Westminster Confession, there will be no difficulty; and 
 as to the Presbyterian government, I have long been per- 
 fectly out of conceit of our unsettled, independent, con- 
 fused way of Church government in this land ; the 
 Presbyterian way has ever appeared to me most agreeable 
 to the word of God, and the reason and nature of things."* 
 It is for this reason that, from the beginning, the ministers 
 and the people of New England have so readily united with 
 the Presbyterian Church, and found in it a genial home. 
 They find the same great principles of orthodoxy in doc- 
 trine, simplicity in worship, and liberty in government, 
 which characterize their own Churches ; while they find, 
 also, a general order and system much the same, but 
 
 extent inconsistent with it. To our minds, the efficiency of our Con- 
 gregational brethren is due to their practical approximation to presby- 
 tery, far more than to independency. It is a singular fact, that in Con- 
 necticut, where the presbyterial element in their discipline has been 
 strongest, Unitarianism gained but a single Church in a quarter of a 
 century; while, in Massachusetts, where what President Edwards called 
 a " confused, unsettled, independent way of Church government" pre- 
 vailed, orthodoxy lost her ancient university and hundreds of her largest 
 and finest Churches. 
 
 * Footc's Sketches of Virginia, page 220.
 
 wrought out into a more settled and perfect constitution. 
 All that is most precious in the old is here preserved ; 
 while that which is loose, unsettled, and weak, is here cor- 
 rected. In point of fact, the Congregationalism of most 
 of New England grew up as the joint product of presby- 
 tery and independency. The first Church at Plymouth 
 was, in part, Presbyterian, and the two platforms of Say- 
 brook and Cambridge fully recognize the Presbyterian 
 element in their Churches. Why, then, may we not walk 
 together in harmony as we have ever done, since the foun- 
 dation of our nation, each co-operating to spread the light 
 and hasten the glory of the millennial morn. Side by 
 side, intermingled and passing from one to the other, we 
 have so grown up as to be recognized by the world as 
 one grand army, supporting the same great principles, and 
 upholding the same institutions, and sending forth a uni- 
 ted influence in moulding the hearts of men. The noblest 
 spirits of New England are surely with us ; though there 
 be those who would raise the banner of a narrow sectar- 
 ism, and heeding not the peace of our Churches, or the 
 feebleness of divided forces, would create division and dis- 
 cord, and bitterness, where hitherto there has been union, 
 and quietness, and love ; yet we should do injustice to the 
 vast body of noble-minded Christians in that favored sec- 
 tion of our country, were we to suppose that they could 
 sympathise with a warfare so unhallowed and fruitless of 
 good. For New England we have suffered much; for her 
 we stand separate from our ancient connections ; and she 
 would prove recreant to the claims of gratitude, and apos- 
 tate from the principles of liberty, and deserving of the 
 scorn of all the true-hearted, if, without reason, she stand 
 not shoulder to shoulder with us in the mighty work
 
 of evangelizing a new continent, and working out the 
 world's redemption. 
 
 In this land we once had a united Presbyterian Church ; 
 it is united no longer. Divided into two nearly equal 
 parts, we stand before the public, and we are, in fact, two 
 distinct denominations. Yet there are scores of thousands 
 of hearts on both sides which beat in unison. What con- 
 stitutes the difference ? It is not in our confessions of 
 faith and terms of communion ; they are identically the 
 same. It is not in our forms of government and manner 
 of Church discipline ; they are one. It is not that either 
 side have abandoned the great platform of faith, in fact, 
 though not in form ; and that these differences of opinion 
 have been created incompatible with a harmonious walk 
 as members of the same denomination. That there are 
 men in both divisions of the Church who differ in the 
 mode of reasoning upon the great facts that compose the 
 system of Paul and Calvin ; who, while they firmly hold 
 the facts themselves, and embrace the system with the 
 deepest convictions of its truth, yet differ somewhat in 
 their conceptions of two or three points of the philosophy, 
 in accordance with which these facts find their fullest ex- 
 planation, is undoubtedly true. But that such differences 
 are inconsistent either with true Presbyterianism, or the 
 uniform practice of our Church from its origin, is entirely 
 a novel and a false idea. In point of fact, precisely the 
 same differences exist in both branches of the Church at 
 this very hour. While men remain imperfect, and the 
 principles of a just toleration characterize us, this will al- 
 ways be the case. It has been the glory of our denomi- 
 nation in this land, that it has stood upon this broad plat- 
 form. Such a liberty is recognized in the very terms of
 
 subscription to the Confession, and has ever been accorded 
 to its ministry and eldership.* If any persons choose to 
 abandon this ground, and compel their brethren to pro- 
 nounce the " shibboleth" with precisely their aspiration 
 and their emphasis, then do they abandon the principles 
 and practice of our Church from its origin ; if they seek 
 from others not only a firm persuasion of the truth of this 
 system of doctrine, and an honest unfolding of it, but, 
 in addition thereto, a strict conformity to their mode of 
 stating and explaining all its recondite relations, an unfal- 
 tering reception of their metaphysics and their logic, then 
 do they arrogate to themselves an authority Presbyterians 
 have never acknowledged, and commend to us a practice 
 in harmony with Popery, but utterly foreign to the free- 
 dom of thought and diversity of views which have char- 
 
 O \i 
 
 * See the second question put to elders and ministers at their ordina- 
 tion. Do you receive * * * as containing the system of doctrine, etc. 
 President Davies, in his address 1o Messrs. Patillo and Richardson, at 
 their ordination, in 1758, puts the question to them thus, " Do you 
 receive the Westminster Confession of Faith, as the confession of your 
 faith ; that is, do you believe it contains an excellent summary of the 
 pure doctrines of Christianity, as taught in the Scriptures, and as purged 
 from the corruptions of Popery and other errors that have crept into 
 the Church ; and do you purpose to explain the Scriptures agreeably to 
 the substance of it?" Works, vol. 3, page 389. 
 
 To the same effect he says, in his Diary, '' We allowed the candidate 
 to mention his objections against any article in the Confession, and the 
 judicature judged whether the articles objected against were essential 
 to Christianity; and if they judged they were not, they would admit 
 the candidate, notwithstanding his objections." Foote's Sketches of 
 Virginia, page 257. The writer has frequently heard his former in- 
 structornow translated to his rest the Rev. Dr. Miller, express the 
 same sentiments, and he is sure that this has ever been the prevailing 
 opinion of many of the most eminent men in the Church. Such was 
 the well guarded liberty of the founders of our Church in this land a 
 liberty equally free from licentiousness and bigotry,
 
 55 
 
 acterized our Church from its first organization on Ameri- 
 can soil. Such are not the narrow views and contracted 
 principles of the immense majority of these two bodies ; 
 and it is not on this point that this division rests. The 
 difference between us springs from another source, and has 
 reference to a principle vital to the integrity of our con- 
 stitution. This separation has arisen from the abandon- 
 ment, by those who have gone out from us, of the second 
 great principle of constitutional freedom THE EIGHT OF A 
 FREE AND FAIR TRIAL. This principle which, as much as 
 any other one, gives our Church its character, and insures 
 within it the rights and liberties of its members, has been 
 struck at in a manner the most open, and with a force 
 that has sent the sound of it abroad through the land. 
 When, by a mere resolution, without the form of trial, 
 without the tabling of charges, without opportunity of ap- 
 peal or defense, a small majority in the assembly of 1837, 
 declared four synods, five hundred ministers, and sixty 
 thousand communicants no longer members of the Church 
 they loved, and in which thousands of them had been 
 born, and in connection with whose ministrations their 
 locks had blossomed for the grave ; when this act of ec- 
 clesiastical injustice was the next year re-enacted and 
 approved, and all who would not give in their adherence to 
 this new test of Presbyterianism, in like manner summarily 
 cast out of their communion ; then, so far as any act of a 
 majority, in an ecclesiastical court, could effect it, one of 
 the abutments of our system was undermined and thrown 
 down. The body enacting, and the Churches adhering to, 
 an act so revolutionary, effect a fundamental change in the 
 constitution of the Church. For, however express the 
 language of that constitution may be in opposition, yet it
 
 is among the commonest experiences of the past that an 
 unrebuked practice of wrong, in high places, will soon es- 
 tablish a precedent for the same practice in low places ; 
 that if the assembly can disregard the constitution by 
 which it is created, and from which it receives all its au- 
 thority if it may assume a power never delegated to it 
 and trample upon the rights of inferior judicatories, with- 
 out rebuke, and with the silent acquiescence of a ma- 
 jority of the Churches if the wrong be not met and 
 resisted at the outset, the precedent supersedes the consti- 
 tution, and that, at length, conies to be regarded as com- 
 mon law, which is utterly opposed to well-defined statute 
 law. Nor does the result of this unconstitutional assump- 
 tion confine itself to the body in which it originated ; that 
 which is right in the higher, acquires the force of law in 
 the lower ; that which is dictated by the wisdom of an 
 august assembly, becomes an authority for the less wise 
 and august synod ; and that which is constituted law by 
 their approbation, easily passes down to the presbytery 
 and Church session, until the right of legislating ministers 
 and members out of the Church, by the resolution of a 
 bare majority, not only without trial, but in direct oppo- 
 sition to a written and known constitution, becomes a 
 settled rule, of which the factious and ambitious may avail 
 themselves to attain that which they never could attain 
 by the legitimate working of the constitution itself. The 
 man who has read the history of the Church and of the 
 world with the least attention, knows that it is from such 
 assumptions, unchallenged and unrebuked, or but feebly 
 resisted, that the fearful apostacy of the Papacy took its 
 rise that constitutional liberty, whether in the state or 
 in the Church, has no enemy more deadly than the as-
 
 67 
 
 sumed plea of some pressing danger to be avoided, or some 
 immediate advantage to be gained, by a violation of the 
 written law, the expressed will of the people, the funda- 
 mental compact which binds the parts together. Once 
 admit that to avoid such danger, or gain such advantage, 
 the constitution may be set aside, and its most fundamental 
 principles violated, and at once such dangers will seem to 
 arise, and such advantages will present themselves, not 
 only to the eyes of overheated controversialists, and 
 earnest partizans, and men ambitious of power, but the 
 more spiritual, who are impatient of the slow methods of 
 discipline and purification prescribed in the constitution 
 and the word of God. On this subject we will trust no 
 man's goodness or amiability to secure our liberties ; we 
 will trust alone to a just and fair construction of the form 
 of our government, and the visible attempt to carry it 
 into execution.* 
 
 Against this revolutionary movement of the assembly 
 
 of 1837 we took our stand in 1838. In opposition to 
 this nullification of the organic law of our Church union 
 we formed the assembly of 1838 on the basis of an un- 
 broken constitution. We protest against this invasion of 
 our liberty ; we are resolved to acquiesce in no such as- 
 sumption of power ; we mean to maintain a pure, consti- 
 tutional Presbyterianism, whoever may forsake this noble 
 platform for the despotic principles of ecclesiastical op- 
 pression. Our Church stands as the full representation of 
 an unbroken Presbyterianism. We cherish the kindest of 
 
 *lt is among the most surprising inconsistencies of our nature, that 
 the very men who would prosecute Mr. Barnes and Dr. Beecher, for an 
 alleged failure to conform to a fair construction of the confession of 
 failh, should themselves abandon the form of government, and in vio- 
 lation of one of its leading principles, cast churches, presbyteries, and 
 synods, by resolution, out of the Presbyterian Church.
 
 58 
 
 feelings towards those who, under the plausible manage- 
 ment of the few, have been persuaded not to express the 
 indignation which they felt, and the convictions which 
 they still possess, of the utter wrong of these acts which 
 have divided the Church. * To hundreds of the faithful 
 men, whom, from childhood, some of us have been taught 
 to reverence as fathers or love as brethren, our hearts are 
 knit in a still unweakened affection. They have erred in 
 judgment ; they should have risen with us in their might, 
 
 * It is a well-known fact, that a large number of those now in con- 
 nection with the New Basis Assembly, regard the cutting off of the 
 synods as illegal and wrong. Why, then, did they not at once see that 
 this wrong was righted? Minds indifferent sections were differently 
 affected. With some, the idea that the excinded synods contained the 
 majority of the Abolitionists, and that their absence secured a majority 
 for the South, had great weight. The three leading men in doing this 
 work were Drs. Robt. Breckenridge, Plumer, and Baxter all Southern 
 men, and part, if not all, slaveholders. Slavery had more to do in the 
 final act than all other causes put together. With others, the slander- 
 ous reports of heresy, as existing in those synods to an alarming extent, 
 which though disproved on the floor of the assembly, were then, and 
 have been since assiduously repeated and spread abroad possessed 
 many minds, and lead them to acquiesce in the act after it was passed, 
 as perhaps the only way of purifying the Church. In several other 
 cases the desire to obtain a permanent majority in favor of the ecclesi- 
 astical boards, influenced them to permit the outrage, or made them 
 lukewarm in opposing it. Among some, the fear that Princeton was 
 in danger that it was contemplated to remove the venerable professors 
 a most unfounded apprehension, and indignantly repelled by those 
 charged with it operated to keep them quiet. Others indulged the 
 hope of a speedy reunion, and that, as the thing was done, it was bet- 
 ter to wait the developments of Providence, than to stand up against 
 it. Others have labored under a false impression respecting the legal- 
 ity of these acts, as determined by the civil law. Others still, have 
 been so hemmed in by those who approved it, as to acquiesce in the 
 present state of things, hoping the best for the future. Had all those 
 whose convictions were with us, manifested their convictions in 
 acting with us, how different would have been the result ! To their 
 own Master they must account for their neglect.
 
 at the first,, and righted this wrong, and branded with the 
 infamy it deserves the atrocious acts by which it was 
 sought to cast their brethren, unheard and untried from 
 our communion. But the act is done ; and while we can 
 not recognize them as men in this matter true to the con- 
 stitution they have vowed to maintain, we yet pray that 
 God will overrule the wrong for their and our greater 
 efficiency, in building up the cause of the dear Redeemer, 
 and the spreading abroad, in its purity, that noble consti- 
 tution of Church government, under which we enjoy a 
 liberty and a power of development, not surpassed in any 
 other religious or civil community ; that, warned by the 
 past, they may see to it that under no future plea of ne- 
 cessity, shall another invasion of the rights of the Churches 
 be allowed. And we can not but hope that, when the few 
 unhappy authors of this work of division shall have passed 
 away, the real piety, and Christian manliness, and true 
 attachment to the principles of presbytery, which exist in 
 the .great body of these brethren, will reveal themselves 
 in a vigorous assertion of the great principles, now for 
 thirteen years trodden under foot ; nor can we doubt but 
 that the time is hastening on, when those who would fain 
 have thrust Joseph into the pit and then sold him into 
 Egypt) will exclaim, " We are vefily guilty concerning our 
 brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he be- 
 sought uSy and we would not hear;" then will that Joseph, 
 his adversity past, extend to them the forgiveness of a 
 Christian, and the warm embrace of a brother's love.* 
 
 * It may yet be seen by those now separated from us, that to us they 
 <owe a debt of gratitude for the position which we have taken in seeking 
 to bring them back to the original platform of our Presbyterian Church. 
 It may yet be seen that they have been preserved from similar acts of 
 excision and assumptions of power, by the stand of liberty which we 

 
 60 
 
 Meanwhile, my brethren, let us be up and doing. We 
 have before us a vast and deeply interesting work a> 
 work which angels might covet, and in which we should 
 count it a glorious privilege to be engaged. We have a 
 noble ecclesiastical constitution, more truly expressive, in 
 my opinion, of the spirit and power of the apostolic dis* 
 cipline, than that of any of our sister Churches. We have 
 but to attend to our own field, develop our own resources, 
 maintain our own institutions, avail ourselves of the in-. 
 strumentalities afforded by our form of government, culti" 
 vate true piety, labor for revivals of religion, and the esr 
 tablishment of the people in the truth; and then, con-: 
 fiding in the gracious sovereignty of our God to shed his 
 benedictions upon us, we shall go forward, and our Church 
 will accomplish a mission of vast importance to our coun- 
 try and the world. 
 
 have taken ; and those who, to gain their own or public ends, would 
 violate the organic law, and change the character of the Church, may 
 understand that the principles of presbytery are not to be thus easily 
 set aside.
 
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