tical politics; but pastors with the excitement of the pastoral work in their hearts and the pressure of it on their hands, are far less likely to fall into such habits than those who are bishops without charge, bishops by ordination merely, bishops with a Divine right to rule those who never called them to office.

4. It is a serious defect of the Presbyterian system, that it makes no adequate provision for the communion of churches. The communion of churches (not of sects or organized denominations, but of churches in the Apostolic sense of the word) is a cardinal principle of Congregationalism. Each church, as it has occasion, is to interchange acts of communion, in Christian freedom, and in the exercise of its own charitable judgment, with all other churches that can be recognized as belonging to Christ, save where some rejection of momentous truth, or some neglect of palpable duty, requires the rebuke implied in the withholding of communion. But Presbyterianism, consolidating its many congregations into the organic unity of a national church, and enclosing them all with its barriers and its circumvallations, shuts them up from that full and free communion with neighbor churches which would be spontaneous if they were left to the impulse of their Christian sympathies and to the guidance of God's word and Spirit. What provision does Presbyterianism make for acts of communion and ecclesiastical intercourse between an Old School congregation, or church as we call it, and a New School church-or between an Old School church and one of the Dutch connection—or between an Old School church and a German Reformed? No doubt there are acts of communion in such cases; but they are abnormal, not provided for by any rule or principle of the system, and they are limited in their range. How can a rigidly Presbyterian congregation go out of its own sect for advice or aid in any ecclesiastical proceeding? Or how can it give such advice or aid without departing from the Book of Discipline?

Presbyterians whose minds have been warped by their system, may have never thought of this-they may feel no such difficulty as we feel-they may even not understand what we mean. Indeed, the reason why Professor Hodge is so completely obfuscated about what he calls Independency, seems to be that in his theory of the church as an organic and governed unity, there is no room for a church in the Scriptural sense of the word, and therefore no room for any conception like that of the communion of churches. But where there is the unembarrassed conception of churches, (as churches are spoken of in the New Testament,) each church complete in itself and dis

tinct from every other, there the conception of the communion of all true churches with each other, is as natural as it is beautiful.

5. Here then we present another objection. The Presbyterian system of church government is schismatical in its working. How it works in this respect, and what is the rationale of its working, may be easily understood by those who are acquainted with it and are capable of comparing it with other systems.

(1.) Its theory of church-unity, substituted for the principle of the communion of churches, stimulates the spirit and confirms the habit of ecclesiastical litigation. The congregations in that system are not so many distinct churches, confederated for certain common purposes, and for mutual counsel; they are only one church. Thus the parties in a cause which begins in a parochial session have never really "told it to the church," till they have carried it up, through presbytery and synod, to the august hearing of the General Assembly; and it is the conceded right of every member having any cause or action before the church, to demand and to obtain the sentence of that highest tribunal. It is a part of the theory, that every litigated case, no matter how petty or local, may have at least three distinct trials before it is concluded, unless one of the parties gives out by the way. Congregationalists who enter the Presbyterian connection, often complain of the complicated and rigid apparatus of rules; the confounding diversity in the ways in which a question is transferred from one tribunal to another, by appeal, by complaint, by reference, by review; and the tenacious adherence to a prescribed routine, as if the form were more important than the spirit. But all these things are a legitimate growth from the theory itself. If you have this theory of church-unity, with this gradation of tribunals, and every tribunal above the lowest a public assembly, you must have the rest. One effect of all this is to multiply the breed of ecclesiastical lawyers, both at the bar and on the bench (or more properly, as the phrase is, as the phrase is, "on the floor") of every church court. Nor is that result to be deprecated, if the system is a good one; for in no other way can the system be fairly administered. Look then at the natural tendency of the system in respect to the spirit and habit of litigation. Here are courts inferior and superior-here are the technicalities and all the tilts and turns of special pleading-here are lawyers whose wits are sharpened by practice-here is the glorious uncertainty of law; and besides all this, the appeal from the lowest tribunal, through all the gradations to the highest, is the inalien

able right of every litigant, so that, if he believes himself to be in the right, he cannot succumb, with a good conscience, to the adverse decision of any tribunal lower than the General Assembly. Whether the actual prevalence of ecclesiastical litigation, and of a litigious and contentious spirit, among thorough Presbyterians, is what might be expected from the obnoxious tendency of the system, is a question of fact which we leave to be determined by those who have had the opportunity of observing.

(2.) The habits of mind naturally engendered in the ministry by this system, tend to the formation of parties. In the business and debates of those ecclesiastical bodies, how much room is there for petty rivalries and jealousies-how many things to bring out the unamiable side of human nature or of individual character? We have more than once observed the pleasure and surprise experienced by a pastor in being transferred from a presbytery to an association of Congregational ministers. The two institutions are often assumed to be analogous by those whose acquaintance is only with one; but the differences between them are greater than the resemblances. The one (except in the new settlements, where the system has not attained its growth) is a convention of clerical bishops and lay elders, meeting in public for jurisdiction and government. The other is a society of ministers who meet at each other's houses for mutual improvement and mutual assistance. The one represents, in a sense, the congregations which it governs, and, at the same time, the dignity and power of the church whose laws it administers; the other represents nothing. In the one there is debate, and the collision and conflict of opinions about the exercise of power; in the other there is conference, advice asked and given, discussion of questions for mutual information, and friendly criticism of each other's performances. In the one, ambition may be tempted by opportunities to acquire the reputation of an able debater; in the other, there is no reputation to be achieved, no prize with the label detur digniori, no excitement but of kindly feelings. In the one, differences of opinion imply a majority and a minority, and are therefore to be regretted as impairing the force of the decision; in the other, differences of opinion are a help to the knowledge of the truth. We do not mean that every presbytery, and every association of Congregational pastors, are all that we have described in drawing this parallel. But we know that when an association of ministers has grown so large that its meetings must be held in a public place; when it be gins to feel and to talk as if it had some sort of corporate su

perintendence over the churches of its district; when it begins to have business of a judicial nature; when yeas and nays begin to be called for, and a place on the record is demanded for protests, it is time to look about for first principles. That association is beginning to be too much like a presbytery; and the sooner it is amicably divided, and made to feel that it is nothing but an association of ministers, the better for all its legitimate purposes.

By the wisdom of God, there are every where two sorts of people the conservative and the progressive. On these two poles of thought, conservation and progress, the human world revolves. In every ecclesiastical connection, as well as in every civil community, there are these two opposite poles. As long as there are the natural diversities of age, and of temperament and mental habit-diversities between the old and the young, the wise and the active, the timid and the rash, the prudent and the impulsive; so long the elements exist which may be slowly or suddenly combined into parties. Our conception of a perfect system of church order implies that under it the enthusiastic laudator temporis acti, who complains of modern degeneracy, and the enthusiastic believer in " the good time coming," who hardly knows how to "wait a little longer," may find their places and their functions, and may live together in peace, as the lion and the lamb shall lie down together in the millennium. How obvious is it, that the genius of such a system must afford large scope for the varieties of temperament and the idiosyncrasies of individual character! The genius of the Presbyterian system delights in uniformity. Episcopalianism insists on uniformity of outward worship, of ceremonies, and of priestly vestments; but Presbyterianism goes further than this, and aims at uniformity of intellectual views and habits. It demands and stimulates thought, but it abhors diversity in modes of thinking. Its voluminous standards are a testimony of what its genius is in this respect. Such a sort of church government cannot but gender strifes. Men trained under such a system will think differently—sometimes about expositions of doctrine, sometimes about measures, sometimes about questions of policy; and their diversities of opinion will agitate their judicatures with the conflict of parties.

(3.) Thus Presbyterianism, with its theory of church-unity, is always tending to division. How many Presbyterian sects are there in Scotland-how many in the United States-each organized in the name of unity, and each a separation from all the others? What made those separations? The lust of uniformity; the passion for church-unity; the rage for govern

ing the churches that ought to have been left to their selfgovernment under Christ. And will not the same cause produce the same effect again and again? The genius and tendency of the system are such, that the whole machinery, from the parochial session upwards, and from the General Assembly downwards, is always potent for agitation and contention. Parties litigant are trained into the habit of refusing submission to the will of the majority. Defeated in the presbytery, the minority appeal or complain to the synod. The synod hears them, and sends the matter back, perhaps, to be in some way the subject of another conflict in the presbytery. Defeated again, the same party, zealous for the right, go again to the synod by some other process. Defeated in the synod, they must not give up, for they are right, and Presbyterianism is right, having been made for just such cases as theirs; and they go to the General Assembly. Perhaps the Assembly gives some new order to the synod or the presbytery, and so the battle is prolonged, till it comes again into the supreme judicature. There at last the decision is given; and the defeated minority, after this long training in habits of resistance, are expected to submit. Will they? Why should they? The question that has caused all this agitation, is a question of orthodoxy perhaps, a question of conformity to standards, a question involving earnest and conscientious convictions on both sides. What true Presbyterian has there ever been, who would permit his conscientious convictions to be overruled by a majority in any General Assembly? What Presbyterian not dependent on the Assembly for his salary and his station, thinks of being governed by the will of a majority on an important question, or has any other care or thought than how to muster a majority for his own opinion? The Assembly that has decided against his party, is wrong-is unsound-has decided against the truth-has violated the constitution. What remains then for him and his associates, but to deny the validity of the decision, to frame their solemn "act and testimony," to hold their convention of "sound Presbyterians," to set up the standard of revolution, and, by whatever expedient may seem most practicable, to effect a violent separation, exscinding or seceding according to the measure of their success? (4.) The Presbyterian system perpetuates divisions. We do not forget that the schism which divided the Presbyterians of this country into two bodies, in 1741, was compromised, and a reunion brought to pass in 1758. But we remember also the weakness of Presbyterianism at that time, and the great danger that hung over it, when all were trembling in fear of an