the thesis, and you have, undoubtedly, High Church Congregationalism.

Very probably Robert Browne stated his great deduction in this High Church form. It may have been needed in selfdefence. But the life of Congregationalism did not lie in that. It lay in the rediscovery of what Mr. Hatch calls the right of free association, which he says was not effectively slain in the Church until the middle of the third century, when that excellent but overbearing Churchman, Cyprian, carried through the condemnation of the Novatian congregation at Rome as schismatical. Luther, as Dr. Schaff shows, grasped this principle at first, but not being able at that time to manage it, let it drop, and confined himself to the reassertion of the universal priesthood of believers in the universal church. Its independent rediscovery by Browne, and practical realization by his successors, was a momentous and auspicious event. In some respects it may almost be called a second Reformation. It opens an easy door of escape to those many Christians who previously, under a superstitious dread of a fictitious definition of schism, had been languishing under the bondage of corrupt or lumbering systems of church authority, and thus has opened many a spiritual dungeon to the free breath of an unfettered life. True, the moderated Anabaptists of the continent had doubtless already enjoyed the reality of it, and helped to confirm it in England, as their successors have ever been the purest of Congregationalists. But they have been so absorbed in another direction, that it has been reserved for the Congregationalists proper to bring their system to a recognized corrivality with Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, and to make New England, on the side of associated Christian life, no ineffective compeer of Geneva, and not overmuch inclined to veil the crest even to Canterbury. And though Methodism arrogates to itself the especial honor of being the champion of Protestantism against Rome, there may be those who think that the centralized administration of its principal form, and various other peculiarities, involve possibilities of betrayal as well as of defence. But no one sees in Congregationalism any possibilities of betrayal. We see only an elastic freedom which weakens Italian domination by a sort of irresistible contagion. Methodism and

Jesuitism have been compared before now, and may be compared again, both on their good and evil sides. But thus far Jesuitism and Congregationalism have remained terms most widely disparate.

But though the assertion of a reserved right in the Church, after so many centuries of desuetude, requires, or may require, large and long-continued exemplification in distinct families of Christian churches, and doubtless its permanent exemplification in some, it by no means follows that a reserved right must be a constantly and universally asserted right. Then it would not be a reserved right. It is not involved in the nature of a spring that it should be always in action. Congregationalism is the strong assertion of State rights. States have rights, and inalienable rights, and he is a most imperfect Unionist who denies it. For how can there be a true Union without integral realities to unite? But most of us will allow that national unity has rights also. A simple "league of perpetual friendship" " doubtless better befits the churches than the States. But the common guidance of common interests, even among the churches, often requires something closer than a league.

Here is the question. The Spirit of Christ, in the first century, fashioned the Church into such forms as suited her necessities. Has not the Spirit of Christ the same prerogatives in all the following centuries? There are certain principles of indefeasible validity, because without them the Christian life cannot actualize itself. But as every variation of the human form is legitimate which allows an easy realization of the specifically human life, so every variation of church form which allows an easy realization of the specifically Christian ends must, by that very fact, be acknowledged as legitimate. One might think that this would secure universal acknowledgment as self-evident. And so no doubt it would, but for the heavy clouds of hereditary prejudice which have hung over us ever since the days of medieval traditionalism, when the system that prevailed, because it had prevailed so long, was assumed to be exclusively Divine. But we are slowly learning, that if we could restore the exact form of the Apostolic Church, we should, by that very fact, prove ourselves unapostolic. Duo faciunt cum idem, non est idem. The apostles, should they

return in the nineteenth century, would assuredly approve a widely different form of the Church from that, or rather those, which they superintended in the first. This applies equally to forms of doctrine, forms of worship, forms of administration, forms of life.

This position, that the indwelling Spirit shapes the outward form, is radically incompatible with High Church theories of every kind. The late Thomas Carlyle, of Edinburgh, an Apostle of the Catholic Apostolic movement, states our view with perfect clearness, and then disdainfully rejects it. And on the other hand, my friend and teacher, the late Rev. James A. Thome, states the opposing theory thus, on behalf of Congregationalism, in exact accordance with Carlyle, though in advocacy of a very different system. Christ, he says, has given the Church a soul, of regenerate life, and action, and has also prepared for her a body, which that soul is to inhabit, the body, in this case, being Congregationalism. Now if we find the body without the soul, or the soul in another body, we have not the true church order. In the former case, we have entire ineffectiveness; in the latter case a lamed effectiveness, the soul imprisoned in an incongruous body. These results are implied (though not fully developed) in his theory that the Church is bidden to seek a body contained in the command of Christ, independently of the soul that is given by the inspiration of Christ.

This is surely a very mechanical view, wholly opposed to scientific apprehensions of the correlative origin of body and soul. And Professor Thome ultimately seems to have let it drift. Practically, it is enough to answer, that in all sorts of church forms we find an effectiveness that is no more lamed than in Congregationalism, that is equally productive and abundantly flexible. How then can it be pretended that Congregationalism is the only legitimate body of the Church? And how can it be maintained that only in Congregationalism can the Church find her best organs of activity, irrespectively of historical growth, national character, and unartificial promptings of the Spirit of Christ? Endeavor to propagate living Christianity, using Congregational church history, or any other, to remove hindering preconceptions, and surely the Church

will find all that she needs, and doubtless may often come out into a substantially Congregational form. But undertake to propagate Congregationalism, or Presbyterianism, or Anglicanism, as a distinct entity, and you never know what will come out of it. For the form of administration is merely one element, and presumably not the chief element, going to make up the life of a body of Christian churches in any particular country or time. To propagate a polity, as a substantial interest, seems like an attempt to establish a particular complexion, or stature, or accent, in a particular country, as if these would not settle themselves naturally, out of the conditions of race and climate, and as if the attempt to superimpose particular habits of action, proceeding from without, could ever fail to embarrass a healthy development from within. Such efforts are often very valuable, as a first stimulus. Beyond that they are depressing, nay deadening.

Cardinal Capecelatro, Archbishop of Capua, the latest biographer of St. Philip Neri, remarking on the rigorous Independency of polity which Philip has established in the Rule of his illustrious institute of the Oratory, suggests, that this is the reflection, in the religious sphere, of the cherished municipal independence of the founder's beloved Florence. But it would not have occurred to the saint or his biographer that there was anything specially divine in the form of his institute above widely different forms of religious rule, suggested by very different personal and civil conditions. Congregationalists, I think, can afford to allow that the Lord Christ is as supremely wise in his coördinations of variety in unity, as the Roman bishop.

This illustration of Neri and Florence is quite in point, for early church-polity grew much more distinctly than any monastic or semi-monastic rule out of civil forms. Every fresh research into the origins of the Church shows more convincingly the truth of what Stanley says, that the heavenly contents of the gospel adapted themselves with unrestrained ease to whatever forms of public life they found existing.

This is illustrated alike on the side of Jewish and of Gentile Christianity. Municipal independence was not characteristic of Palestinian life, and it formed no prominent note of Palestinian Christianity. The church of Jerusalem, its elders and

return in the nineteenth century, would assuredly approve a widely different form of the Church from that, or rather those, which they superintended in the first. This applies equally to forms of doctrine, forms of worship, forms of administration, forms of life.

This position, that the indwelling Spirit shapes the outward form, is radically incompatible with High Church theories of every kind. The late Thomas Carlyle, of Edinburgh, an Apostle of the Catholic Apostolic movement, states our view with perfect clearness, and then disdainfully rejects it. And on the other hand, my friend and teacher, the late Rev. James A. Thome, states the opposing theory thus, on behalf of Congregationalism, in exact accordance with Carlyle, though in advocacy of a very different system. Christ, he says, has given the Church a soul, of regenerate life, and action, and has also prepared for her a body, which that soul is to inhabit, the body, in this case, being Congregationalism. Now if we find the body without the soul, or the soul in another body, we have not the true church order. In the former case, we have entire ineffectiveness; in the latter case a lamed effectiveness, the soul imprisoned in an incongruous body. These results are implied (though not fully developed) in his theory that the Church is bidden to seek a body contained in the command of Christ, independently of the soul that is given by the inspiration of Christ.

This is surely a very mechanical view, wholly opposed to scientific apprehensions of the correlative origin of body and soul. And Professor Thome ultimately seems to have let it drift. Practically, it is enough to answer, that in all sorts of church forms we find an effectiveness that is no more lamed than in Congregationalism, that is equally productive and abundantly flexible. How then can it be pretended that Congregationalism is the only legitimate body of the Church? And how can it be maintained that only in Congregationalism can the Church find her best organs of activity, irrespectively of historical growth, national character, and unartificial promptings of the Spirit of Christ? Endeavor to propagate living Christianity, using Congregational church history, or any other, to remove hindering preconceptions, and surely the Church