England, whether his character be good or bad. He is hence called "Defender of the Faith." The laws which are to regulate the Church are enacted by Parliament, whose members are not all required to be Christians, judged by any standard of Christianity whatever. They may be Jews, or infidels, or Christians, and yet they determine the creed to be professed, the rites to be used, the worship to be rendered to Almighty God, and the offices to be held in the Church. The Prime Minister may be utterly irreligious, and yet he nominates the archbishop, bishops, and other functionaries of the Church, for no other reason than that of his momentary relation to the Sovereign and the State. The clergy must also be tried, both as to doctrine and practice, by courts appointed by Parliament. All this we deem derogatory to the honour of Christ, who is "Head over all things to His body the Church," and is entitled to the absolute obedience of all its members in things spiritual. It gives to Cæsar that which belongs to Christ as King of the conscience. It enslaves those who should be the Lord's freemen.

5. We object to the constitution of the Church of England as inconsistent with the separateness which there should be in the Church. The New Testament requires that Christians should come out of the world and be separate, forming a spiritual kingdom, recognising Christ as its King: "a peculiar people, zealous of good works." As such they are to have a common aim and purpose, and to be regulated by laws which belong specially to themselves. They are to be witnesses, lights, as a city set on a hill, which cannot be hid."

They are to attract to themselves those who are without by the very differences which distinguish them. But in the Church of England this distinction is lost. The Church is the nation ecclesiastically organised. The rites of the Church are administered, in some cases under compulsion of law, to those who have no religious character or fitness. There is no provision made to preserve the purity of the Church. Irreligious patrons have the power to bestow valuable livings upon their relations and others who have little or no fitness for the ministry. And the clergy, if ever so godly, are obliged to admit to the communion, and to recognise as members, those in whom the largest charity can discover no piety, and then to bury them as if they were saints. There are tens of thousands of ungodly persons who are recognised as members of the Church, and they cannot be excluded. So long as our views of the constitution of New Testament Churches are what they are, we cannot conform. Though the Church of England should

be reformed, so long as she is under State patronage and control, or, in other words, a national Established Church, ignoring Christ's statement when he said, "My kingdom is not of this world," so long must we be Nonconformists.

Let us not be ashamed of our Nonconformity then. It comes from the exercise of the right of private judgment, our ad-. herence to Scripture teaching, our loyalty to Christ, our repugance to authoritative standards, to sponsorship in service,. compulsion in religion, our views of the nature of Christian profession, of Church membership, of Church independence, and Church government. If we become Conformists we turn our backs, not on one or two of our principles, but on many, and all of them of sufficient importance to be honestly and conscientiously maintained; but so long as we are faithful to our convictions as Baptists, we continue to witness against the errors, the inconsistencies and evils of the Established Church, which many of her own ministers and members admit and deplore, but cannot remedy.

XIX. THE PASTORAL OFFICE.

"The true ministerial livery is not holy orders, but holy doctrine and holy living.”—J. A. JAMES.

Baptists generally recognise only two orders of officers as essential in the churches since the apostolic period, namelypastors and deacons. They consider the broad distinction between these two to be that the former are the leaders or rulers of a church in its more spiritual work, and the latter helpers, especially in looking after its temporal affairs.

They regard the office of an apostle as extraordinary and special. It was necessary that an apostle should have "seen the Lord," that he should have received his commission directly from the Lord in person, and that he should, consequently, be a witness of Christ in a sense in which those who have not seen Him cannot be. They therefore know nothing of apostolic succession, to which Episcopalian and Roman Catholic priests lay claim, and to which these priests attach immense importance. On us devolves no such impossible task as that of showing that our officers can trace their official genealogy from bishop to bishop, without any break in the chain, to some one of the Twelve. We leave it to those whom it may concern. They may well ponder the following words of the late Lord Macaulay ::

"The transmission of orders from the apostles to our English clergymen of the present day must have been through a very great number of intermediate persons. Now, it is probable that no clergyman in the Church of England can trace up his spiritual genealogy from bishop to bishop so far back as the time of the Conquest. There remain many centuries during which the history of the transmission of his orders is buried in utter darkness. And whether he be a priest by succession from the apostles depends on the question whether, during that long period, some thousands of events took place, any one of which may, without any gross improbability, be supposed not to have taken place. We have not a tittle of evidence for these events. We do not even know the names or countries of the men to whom it is taken for granted that these events happened. We do not know whether the spiritual ancestors of any one of our contemporaries were Spanish or Armenian, Arian or Orthodox. In the utter absence of all particular evidence, we are surely entitled to require that there should be very strong evidence indeed that the strictest regularity was observed in every generation, and the episcopal functions were exercised by none who were not bishops by succession from the apostles. But we have no such evidence." It is important to bear this in mind when Roman Catholic and Episcopalian clergymen base their claim to be regarded as the only spiritual guides of the people on such pretensions, and consequently deny that those who are not in this succession have any right to the Christian ministry.

Now, in the New Testament the pastors of the churches are variously named. They are called pastors, or shepherds, because they have to "feed the flock of God," the church committed to their care. They are called bishops, or overseers, because they have to "watch for souls as those who must give account" to the Chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls. They are called elders or presbyters, probably because they have to exercise superintendence and preserve order in the church. They are called teachers, because it is their duty to instruct those over whom they are placed. They have to do the work of an evangelist also, in preaching the Gospel to those who are without. Some may be better qualified for one part of the office than others, and may be set apart mainly for that one part of the work, and be most appropriately called by the name which is best fitted to denote it; but it would not be difficult to show that these terms are applied to the same persons. Thus, in Acts xx. 17, we read that Paul "called the elders of

the church together," and in the twenty-eighth verse we find him calling them bishops or overseers. So also we find Peter (1 Eph. v. 1) saying, "The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ; feed the flock of Christ which is among you, taking the oversight thereof," or as the original signifies, acting as bishops. It would be possible to show, if space would allow, that in this manner the names elder or presbyter (which are two renderings of the same Greek word), bishop, pastor, and teacher are applied interchangeably to the same persons who presided over separate churches. Put together the several things implied in these words, and you have a pretty correct idea of the New Testament teaching respecting the office of a Christian pastor. Put together the several duties which are enjoined upon those who bare these offices, and you see what may be required of an efficient Christian pastor.

Baptists hold that the office of Christian pastor is designed to be permanent in the church. It is still needed, and always will be as long as Christian instruction and oversight are needed, and so long as order and good government are to be maintained. Its appointment is one of the manifold evidences of God's care of the churches, and the wise provision made for their welfare by their Lord and Head, who, "when He ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things, gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

The pastoral office is not a priesthood. The Baptists know nothing of any official priesthood in the churches. They recognise the priesthood of all believers indeed, who have access to God for themselves and others through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ offered once for all, and who consequently may by their own supplications and intercessions, rendered effectual by Christ's mediation, avert the threatened judgments of God, and bring down those blessings upon their country and the world which shall be as "rivers in the deserts." Christ they acknowledge as their great High Priest, and all believers in Him as "a royal priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Him." They regard all who claim official priesthood as usurpers of the Redeemer's glory, who assume the prerogatives which belong to Him, and rob His saints of their unofficial but most sacred priestly rites.

•

In thus denying the priestly office to the pastor, we do not degrade him. We invest him with the honour of being a teacher, a leader, a guide and helper of the saints in faith and

hope and love, and in those good deeds which spring from such graces.

It is the honour which comes from superior intelligence and consecration to Christian work-the honour of personal character and of voluntary service in forming, and developing, and beautifying the characters of others. He is to be "esteemed very highly in love," not for his office sake, but "for his work's sake," by which he renders himself essential to the church which he serves for Jesus' sake. He is, indeed, more a prophet than a priest; a priest-maker, and an instructor and guide of the spiritual priesthood, by making known the Word of the Lord.

Nor is the pastor less Divinely appointed then the priest is supposed to be. It is Christ who gives "pastors and teachers for the work of the ministry." He "hold the stars in His right hand." It is to the "Lord of the harvest we are instructed to pray when " the labourers are few." Those who are not Divinely qualified by gifts and graces specially fitting them for the office are not justified in putting their hand to the work. They who are not called of God by the voice of the Spirit within them, and that of Providence without them, are guilty of a wicked presumption in undertaking it. The Divine appointment impresses them with a deep sense of obligation to engage in it, and entitles them to the respect, and honour, and help of all Christian men, and to the support of those especially for whose spiritual good they labour.

66

Being called to preach the Gospel, they are entitled to live of the Gospel. Having sown unto men in spiritual things, they have a right to reap their carnal things. Having relinquished the secular pursuits by which others "provide things honest in the sight of all men," they must be furnished with the means of support for themselves and families, so that they also may owe no man anything," and be free from the worry and anxiety about temporal things which would unfit them for their ministry and pastorate. And from whom must this come? Not, surely, from funds to which believers and unbelievers, infidels and Jews and Christians alike have been compelled to contribute, as in the case of a State-paid clergy, but from those to whom the ministry has been blessed in the enlightening of the understanding, and in the sanctifying and comforting of the heart; from those who, consequently, should be ready out of a willing mind to contribute as God hath prospered them. And whatever is given should be considered as given to God rather than to His servants, or to His servants for their Divine Master's sake, who will assuredly say, "Inasmuch as ye did it