substance vivifies the form-here is the whole history of Evangelical Christianity, and of the true Catholic Church of Jesus Christ."

IV. We look next to the RULE OF THE CHURCH. In the year 1536 it was declared in Convocation to be King Henry's pleasure that the rites and ceremonies of the Church should be reformed by the rules of Scripture, and that nothing was to be maintained, which did not rest upon that authority. God made use of the selfishness of the monarch to disinter this grand principle from the grave, in which the sextons of Roine had buried it. But the royal intelligence which a selfish aim in the conflict with the Pope had rendered so keen, beheld not the whole reach of this principle, nor ever imagined that it would not only set the Church beyond the Pope's jurisdiction, but also above the king's. Yet so it was. The discovery which the king_commenced, the Puritans perfected. They made the Rule of Scripture the only rule of the Church, and therein made a free Church. They made the Word of God the only Rule of Faith, binding every man to the study of that rule, to take it not upon the trust of the Church, but to examine himself and the Church by it. Every man was to do this, relying on the teaching of the Spirit of God. It was this that made the Puritan Theologians such men of depth and power. It was this that gave the principles of their reformation such hold upon them and such stability, that nothing could beat down their progress. They had the power and tenacity of conscience, the obstinacy of the clearest convictions of duty.

This independence, this right of private judgment, in reliance on the Spirit of God in his Word, carries with it the obligation of great and pemanent duties. It enforces those duties, keeps the soul in them, and makes the whole of our authority and life in Christ to consist in their spiritual performance. If you rely upon the Church, and take her faith, her teachings, her commandments, as yours, and infallible, and deem yourself safe in her communion, you will give up those duties, you will not feel yourself called upon to perform them. You will say, I believe as the Church believes, and can read and pray only as the Church reads and prays. I am in the Church, and so I am in Christ, and I partake of the life of Christ by partaking of the life of the Church and its ordinances, and nothing more is requisite. This is the ingenuity of the enemy of all righteousness, to keep men out of Christ by imbedding them in the Church, as lifeless fossils in a bed of stone. For if the members thus rely upon the Church, as the medium between them and Christ, the whole Church relies upon the Church, and is therefore no Church, cannot be a living Church, is not united to Christ, but is no better than a bed of limestone. For a Church can be a true Church THIRD SERIES, VOL. IV. NO. 1. 4

only by the individual union of its members to and with Christ; and if they be not so united with him, and so depending upon him, they are no part of his Body. If each individual is depending upon his membership with that union of individuals which he calls a Church, or the Church, for his religion and salvation, then the whole Church are depending on the same, on a nonentity, on a shadow and a lie. It may be likened to a great company of speculatists, issuing shares on fictitious stock, and each individual trading on the credit of the company without one farthing of capital. It is neither more nor less than a great South Sea scheme in religion, a bubble, with which thousands amuse and delude themselves now, but which is to burst at last to the destruction of thousands.

But if you maintain your independence in private judgment, in reliance, not upon the Church, but upon Christ, upon the Spirit of Christin the Word, then, having no external thing to support you, no false credit of the company to go upon, no figment of Church stock to make your professions available, you must go yourself to Christ, you must seek for yourself the power of his Spirit, you must for yourself study his Word to feed upon it, to be strengthened by it, to receive divine teaching in it. Your doctrine of private judgment binds you to prayer, to the searching of the Scriptures, to personal communion with your Savior. Your doctrine of private judgment and sanctification is monstrous presumption and hypocrisy without this. It is pride, rationalism, and impiety, without this. It is life, power, and glory, with it.

It is this private judgment, which leads the soul to the only known rule and standard, known and read of all. They who deny it, and assert that the individual soul must rely upon the judgment of the Church, let them tell us how that judgment is to be discovered. Where is that judgment? In answer to this question, true Protestants say, The judgment of the Church is in the Word of God; but others, denying private judgment, must throw the soul back again upon a judgment of the Church, in order to discover what is the sense of Scripture. And where is that judgment? Where can the common, unlettered believer find it? Is there any volume in which it is recorded plainer than the Word of God? Any volume, which the believer would not have, after all, to judge by private interpretation? Where is the judgment of the Church to be found? It is like the sign-post at a place sometimes overflowed with water, on which you read, When the water is above this mark-the traveller must not attempt to cross. But where is the mark to be seen, when the waters rise above it? So with this pretended judgment of the Church. On what post, above high water mark, is it to be found recorded? Where can the believer, who cannot be trusted with the Word of God, find it?

The judgment of the Spirit and the Word is certain; the judgment of the Church is uncertain. The judgment of what is called the Church may at any time have been the judgment of men for the greater part without any reliance upon the Holy Spirit, or any teaching or illumination from the same. The judgment of the Church may sometimes be nothing more than the judgment of men, who themselves exercised private judgment in the worst way, without the sense of their dependence upon the Spirit; without seeking the guidance of the Spirit, and who then unitedly sought to enforce opinion so formed upon others, and upon all who should come after them. But the judgment of the Word, and of the Spirit enlightening the mind and sanctifying the heart by the Word, is right judgment; it is the judgment of Christ, not of man.

This is that blessed and power-investing individual independence, which we maintain and teach, and in which consists the whole hope of freedom and victory for the Church of Christ. It is entire dependence on the Spirit of God in the Word of God. That constitutes independence, power, glory. That makes the Church one, one in the individual, one in the mass, one by the translucence and reflection of all in each and each in all, one in the Body, because of the perfect individuality and independence of each member in Christ, one like the wheels of Christ's chariot, as described by Milton, full of eyes, each eye an individual existence. Such a chariot for Christ is his Church, not in reliance upon itself, its own greatness or infallibility, but upon Him.

Evangelical Protestants rely not upon the Word of God alone, but upon the Word with the Spirit, the Spirit in the Word, the Spirit teaching, enlightening, sanctifying, by the Word. This fact has been greatly forgotten, or rather, it has not been dwelt upon, and impressed on men's minds as it ought. The principle has always been acted upon by all evangelical Churches, by all sincere heart-Protestants, but it has not received such an utterance, such an external manifestation in form, such an open recognition and acknowledgment, as was necessary. The principle as stated generally, The Bible, the only religion of Protestants, has exclusively occupied attention in the formal announcement. Going along with this, the doctrine of private judgment has been declared in such a manner, so exclusively of all notice of that higher and deeper reliance, which true Protestants have upon the Holy Spirit as the guide of private judgment, that the friends of tradition and of despotism in the Church, and the enemies of the Reformation, have enjoyed some opportunity of objecting against this private judgment as a thing of individual pride and presumption. We must take away all color for that objection, by stating and maintaining our doctrine of private judgment as always in the most express reliance, both implied and positive, upon the Spirit of God as our teacher. It is with the Spirit of

God alone that we assert the privilege, the right, the duty, and the blessedness of private judgment. Private judgment without the Spirit, private judgment not cognisant of the Spirit, or recognising and relying upon the guidance of the Spirit, is worthless, nay, pernicious. It is no better than Rationalism. It is mere unsanctified, unilluminated human theology; the theology of men, not of God; the work of human speculation, relying solely upon human reason. Such is private judgment without the Spirit.

The theologians and the theology of New England hold to no such private judgment as this. They hold reliance on the Spirit and the Word, reliance on the Spirit teaching in and by the Word. This was the private judgment of the great Jonathan Edwards. He relied not upon a fallible Church, but upon the infallible Word and Spirit of God. He maintained, and the Evangelical theologians and Christians of New England now maintain, the right and duty of each individual to exercise an individual interpreting judgment, under guidance of the Spirit of God, directly upon the Word of God; to exercise it not with the Church as its mediator, not with the Church coming in between the soul and the Word and the Spirit of God, but with the Spirit teaching by the Word, and leading into its truth, with just as entire a solitude and independence, as if no Church but the individual soul itself existed. For this is the independence, which Christ confers on every Christian by entire dependence on Him, his Word, and his Spirit. We recognise and proclaim the duty of each individual member of Christ's Body to rely, not upon the Body, but upon the Head. We proclaim the truth that he who does not rely upon the Head is not of the Body: that the very essence of Christianity is union by the Spirit with the Head.

There is to be a great and glorious period of Christianity, when it shall be developed in and from the common mind under the instruction and influence directly, not indirectly, of the Word of God. Divine providence in the discipline of the Puritans, in the effusions of the Holy Spirit upon the Churches planted by them and continued from them, and in the perfection of the institution of Sabbath schools, has been preparing for this development. It is not science that will produce this epoch, nor the eclecticism of a Christian philosophy of history, seeking to gather into one age the various peculiar characteristics of past ages. It is the Word and the Spirit of God moving upon the common mind, that shall bring it about. Heretofore, the characteristics of what historians call Christianity have been those of science rather than of life, and of science occupied with the letter of dogmas, rather than with the footsteps and workings of the Spirit; and with the letter exterior to self, rather than in self

research and meditation. Hitherto, also, this development of Christianity has been owing to a few minds, which alone have been acquainted and familiar with the Word of God, and which have stamped their views upon the multitude; coming, as it were, between the common mind and the Divine Word, so that, however correct, profound, and excellent their views may have been, the mass of men, even of Christians, have received the truth at second-hand, and not immediately from the Scriptures. The business of the teachers of the Christian schools and churches has been rather to dogmatize concerning the contents of the Scriptures, and to put them in scientific formulas, than to make the Scriptures to be known and read of all. Consequently, Christianity, so called, has degenerated into theories, and neglected life. But theories and dogmatic systems cannot be perfect without life; if they be framed without life, or by men, who themselves are scientific dogmatizers and systematizers, rather than Christians feeding on the Word and feeding others, they must and will continue not only imperfect, but erroneous. If Christianity be studied in them, false views will be adopted concerning it; if a historical Christianity be gathered and taught from them, that also will be erroneous.

A scientific Christianity, in order to be perfect, must be the work not only of the Doctors of the Schools, but of the life and knowledge of common Christians. The word as known and revealed through them must contribute to it, and not merely as known in the crucible, in the theoretic laboratory of the student. The common life of the Church must reflect light upon it, and give life to it, else it is partial, one-sided, and in a measure dead. It is cut off from the Church, which is the Body of Christ, if it does not come from the experience of the Church, and receive and interchange life with the Church. Hence the necessity of a theology learned from the Word of God by practical pastors, who have much to do with the experience and for the guidance of common minds under the operation of the Spirit of God; the necessity of a theology brought from the Word of God for the wants of the Church, by men, who are working for the spread of life, and not merely the perfection of science. If it comes from scientific formal theologians alone, it must necessarily be defective and partial; if it comes from the Word through them alone, it is not the true scriptural, nor the true historical Christianity, because the Word, as it flows through the life and opinions of the family of believers, is neglected. The historical Christianity that some men talk of is the phase of Christianity in a few scholastic, scientific minds, while the great body of believers have either not known the Scriptures personally, or very defectively, or have been so cut off from contact with these minds, that they have had no representation or representative in the casting of the scientific