sifting creeds, and arranging and examining names, and studying national theologies, and sweating over the crucible, and running for help to the science of the world, but to give the Word of God to the world. Her Mission is not to be analysing theology, but spreading life. Her work is not to be inquiring what is the Church of Christ, but to be gathering ignorant and lost sinners into that Church. What unutterable absurdity to be disputing about Catholicism, to be regarding the question of the Church, the Catholicism of the Church, as the question of the age, the determination of our crisis, the mission of our generation, when, as yet, the Church is but a handful of seed-corn, scarcely sown ; when even in Christendom, so called, the Church is not one hundredth part of the community, and Christendom is not one twentieth part of the world; when, indeed, the world is still lying in wickedness!

For the Church to be absorbed in the problem of her own Catholicism, under such circumstances, for the Church to be parading rival catalogues of successional priesthood, for the Church to be bandying the watchwords of exclusion and dissent, is as if a body of physicians, called to the bed-side of a patient in imminent danger of dying, or commissioned into a hospital filled with the subjects of a dreadful plague, should deliberately set themselves down to studying and comparing their diplomas, saying that the great medical question of the age was the universality of the medical degree. The lord of the hospital would turn such men out with contempt and punishment; and we fear the great husbandman of the vineyard cannot be less offended, when he sees those to whom he has said, Go work, endeavoring to exclude one another from the field, and contending at its very gate about the Catholicism of their diplomas, and setting themselves to work out the problem of a histor. al Christianity,. instead of taking care of the vines, and gathering in the harvest; we have reason to fear that he will have cause to y his Church with great judgments, to purify it of its proud, cance... as, scientific janglings and theories, so as by fire.

The Mission of the Church is the work of Missions. God began to disclose this to the Puritans before they left their own country, just as he disclosed it to the Church of Jerusalem, when he scattered them abroad by the blasts of persecution. The work our Puritan Fathers set upon was a missionary work, with missionary aims and motives, for that age remarkably far-sighted, elevated, and pure. We trust in God that it is for this work he has been preparing the Evangelical Church in this country ever since, and that he will not now suffer us to be turned aside from it. How absurd to be occupied, at such a period as this, with foolish questions, genealogies, and contentions, unprofitable and vain! How absurd to dream as yet of encompassing in our theology the

organic whole of Christianity, when as yet we have seen so little of the development of Christianity even in its parts; when, as yet, we are acquainted with so small a portion of the great family, and with the experience of that portion so indistinctly! How absurd to dream of perfecting our scientific Christianity by the study of a historical Church, when, as yet, we have seen so few of the phases of that Church, have seen that Church in only such minute portions, such bits of leaven, prevented from working, and hindered by the wicked one! How absurd to send us to the organic whole for instruction, when, as yet, so small a portion of the redeemed belonging to that whole are gathered in; when, as yet, we know so little what forms of development the Church in her enlargement may take; when, as yet, the Church has performed so little of her mission in the world.

The question of this age is, and ought to be, not the organic whole of Christianity, nor the Catholicism of the Church, nor the Unity of the Church, but THE

CONVERSION OF THE WORLD.

Our crisis is not that of the Church Catholic, but of the Church Militant and Missionary. It is the most extreme neglect and perversion of duty and of grace, to turn aside from our great work at the voice of a pretended philosophic and scientific theology, after the idea of a transcendental organic whole, or at the voice of a false outcry about sectarianism and unity, instead of devoting ourselves to the building up of the real whole, to the gathering in of the Gentiles into the fold of Christ; instead of giving ourselves to the great business of "making all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Christ Jesus, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to his eternal purpose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

If we will but work on, in fervent love for Christ, we may safely leave the unity of our Church, and our reputation for unity, to take care of itself. The Mission of the Church is THE WORK OF MISSIONS. We cannot possess the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace except just so far as we are engaged for the love of Christ, in the work of saving souls. By that work God will unite and distinguish his Church. We have little to do with the organic whole of Christianity, and still less with the imitation or the boast of a Romish unity, but to labor after the fulfilment of Paul's prayer, "that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God."

The zeal of some writers about the Catholicism and organic

whole and the visible unity of the Church, reminds us of some striking remarks of Edwards in his great work on Revivals. "Persons," he says, "that are influenced by an indiscreet zeal are always in too much haste; they are impatient of delays, and, therefore, are for jumping to the uppermost step first, before they have taken the preceding steps; whereby they expose themselves to fall and break their bones; it is a thing very taking with them to see the building rise very high, and all their endeavor and strength is employed in advancing the building in height, without taking care withal proportionably to enlarge the foundation; whereby the whole is in danger of coming to the ground; or they are for putting on the cupola and pinnacle before they are come to it, or before the lower parts of the building are done; which tends at once to put a stop to the building, and hinder it ever being a complete structure. Many that are thus imprudent and hasty with their zeal have a real eager appetite for that which is good; but are like children, that are impatient to wait for the fruit until the proper season of it, and, therefore, snatch it before it is ripe. Oftentimes in their haste they overshoot the mark, and frustrate their own end; they put that which they would obtain further out of reach than it was before, and establish and confirm that which they would remove."

VI. By the same discipline of the Word, Providence and Grace of God, the Puritans were taught the great practical things which they learned so thoroughly concerning the true LIfe and dependENCE OF THE CHURCH. That life is inward, and it grows less, the more approximation men make to dependence on an arm of flesh, of whatever nature. But it grows more vigorous, the less regard there is to anything external, except simply the work of saving souls, which truly is itself an inward work, and can hardly with propriety be called external, so entirely are its activity and success derived from the Spirit. This inward life is the element of joy in the Lord; and the strength of the Church consists so much in that, that the experience of David may be assumed as that of the whole Church of Christ, the lips of the Church being sealed like his, until God opens them. "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me by thy free Spirit; then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee." This experimental knowledge of the joy of God's salvation, and this buoyancy and fulness of freedom and delight in teaching and winning souls, in which consists the strength of the Church, are to be found only in a life hid with Christ in God.

This life is sustained by his Spirit, fed by his Word. The more men are beaten from all external reliances, and thrown upon Christ, the stronger they are, and the more indestructible, vigorous, and joyous this life becomes. The Providence of God with

our Puritan Fathers made this lesson conspicuous. With heroic faith they practised it, when once they had learned it, when once God had broken them away from all that mortals are accustomed to rely upon or to hold dear. They were long time in learning it, in some things, and with much difficulty, because some of their reliances, which were in reality an arm of flesh, looked to them like a refuge of the Spirit. They held on to the Church Establishment, they were afraid to separate, they hoped in princes, they trusted in an arm of flesh, taught to do so by that union of State and Church, to which they had been accustomed, and from the blindness produced by which it took long time perfectly to recover. God was teaching them His great lesson continually, endeavoring to make them see it, and yet they constantly, in this matter, endeavored to lean upon man. But God would disappoint them, would beat them off, would leave the reed to pierce them. At length he broke them away from king, country, State, Church, all.

The more closely men are thus thrown upon Christ, the simpler will be their form, if they have that to choose, and the best adapted for use, growth, and effort. It was partly their deep sense of dependence upon Christ, and partly the external providences of God, and partly the teachings of his Spirit in his Word, that led our Pilgrim fathers to a form of Church organization so near to the primitive simplicity of the Scriptures. They broke down every external wall of partition possible, and would be brought in all things near to God, just as in all things they were thrown upon God. Their principles were tried in every way. They had had all the advantage of being experimented upon in the Old World by men without true godliness and spiritual wisdom, in cases where it is manifest that for want of these ingredients they failed; all which went to demonstrate that the kingdom of Christ is not one that can succeed by the mere Ark of God in the camp, or by a true, pure, and well nigh primitive form; but a kingdom that, the more it is like the first model of its founder, the greater measure of his Spirit it demands, to meet, sustain, and keep alive its excellence. So the attempt of the Brownists was full of instruction. It failed, because it had more of the Spirit of the World, than of the Spirit of Christ. It was the wine of the Old Adam put into new bottles, and so the bottles burst. We must have the wine of the new dispensation put into the bottles of the new dispensation, and so both are preserved; and this we say is in favor of the simplicity of these new bottles, that they require the new wine, the Pentecostal wine of the Spirit, and will not answer for the old. In the case of Robinson and the Pilgrims, it was most manifestly not an experiment of man but of God, an experiment with God's Spirit. Every step of it proved that, and its spiritual success proves it. The ex

periment they made was of such a nature, that if it had been of man, it must have come to naught; and it would have come to naught the sooner, for the simplicity and freedom of the form which they had chosen. Had they moored their Church to the Hierarchy, and kept the form of the Hierarchy, the form might have held up long after the Spirit had departed. But throwing themselves as they did, solely upon Christ, if it had not been for the fulness of the Spirit, everything would have disappeared; form, existence, all would have suffered shipwreck.

Now the man of hierarchical tendencies will reason against the simplicity and unworldliness of such a form, because he will say, it wants a support in human nature, and possesses no power of appeal to anything but bare spirituality of mind, and if deserted of that, must go to ruin. But it is precisely this argument which is irresistibly in its favor. The simplicity of this form needs Christ to support it, and cannot be supported without Christ. For this reason it is infinitely precious to the world's best interests; and well would it be for the world, if no form could be supported without Christ. Had it been so, we should have been spared the almost infinite curse which the Form without the Power of godliness has inflicted on the world. The hierarchical despotism, which, by the prevalence of Form without the Spirit, has maintained such ages of remorseless persecution, would have been rendered impossible. And now, a return to the primitive simplicity of Form is one of the world's greatest securities against the repetition of such scenes of ecclesiastical wickedness.

It is also one of the best securities against schism. Whatever ingredient, form, or ceremony, not set down in Scripture as essential, men set up in the Church as essential, is schism. It is likewise the beginning of despotism and persecution. It was a declaration of Milton, worthy to be written in every language in the world, that "to us nothing can be catholic or universal in religion, but what the Scripture teaches; whatsoever without Scripture pleads to be universal in the Church, IN BEING UNIVERSAL IS BUT THE MORE SCHISMATICAL." To this corresponds that striking and noble declaration of Bishop Hooper that "the Church of Christ, the more it was and is burdened with man's laws, the further it is from the true and sincere verity of God's Word. It is mine opinion unto all the world that the Scripture solely is to be followed, and the Apostles' Church, and no man's authority, be he Augustine, Tertullian, or even Cherubim or Seraphim."

The more simple the form, the more Christ is needed to fill it. And ordinarily the more there is in it of man and man's device, the less of Christ it can receive, and the less men feel the need of Christ in it. The fathers of the Church in New England were not so worldly and political, as to choose a form of Church