the unworthy from her own communion.

Now, the question is, Where does this power vest? Does it, as Romanists and Prelatists affirm, belong exclusively to the clergy? Have they the right to determine for the Church what she is to believe, what she is to profess, what she is to do, and whom she is to receive as members, and whom she is to reject? Or does this power vest in the Church itself that is, in the whole body of the faithful? This, it will be perceived, is a radical question-one which touches the essence of things, and determines the destiny of men. If all Church power vests in the clergy, then the people are practically bound to passive obedience in all matters of faith and practice; for all right of private judgment is then denied. If it vests in the whole Church, then the people have

a right to a substantive part in the decision of all questions relating to doctrine, worship, order, and discipline. The public assertion of this right of the people, at the time of the Reformation, roused all Europe. It was an apocalyptic trumpet, i. e. a trumpet of revelation, tuba per sepulchra sonans, calling dead souls to life; awakening them to the consciousness of power and of right; of power conveying right, and imposing the obligation to assert and exercise it. This was the end of Church tyranny in all truly Protestant countries. It was the end of the theory that the people were bound to passive submission in matters of faith and practice. It was deliverance to the captive, the opening of the prison to those who were bound; the introduction of the people of God into the liberty wherewith Christ has made them free. This is the reason

why civil liberty follows religious liberty. The theory that all Church power vests in a divinely constituted hierarchy, begets the theory that all civil power vests, of divine right, in kings and nobles. And the theory that Church power vests in the Church itself, and all Church officers are servants of the Church, of necessity begets the theory that civil power vests in the people, and that civil magistrates are servants of the people. These theories God has joined together, and no man can put them asunder. It was, therefore, by an infallible instinct, the unfortunate Charles of England said, "No bishop, no king;" by which he meant, that if there is no despotic power in the Church, there can be no despotic power in the State; or, if there be liberty in the Church, there will be liberty in the State.

But this great Protestant and Presbyterian principle is not only a principle of liberty, it is also a principle of order. 1st. Because this power of the people is subject to the infallible authority of the word; and 2d. Because the exercise of it is in the bands of duly constituted officers. Presbyterianism does not dissolve the bands of authority, and resolve the Church into a mob. Though delivered from the autocratic authority of the hierarchy, it remains under the law to Christ. It is restricted in the exercise of its power by the word of God, which bends the reason, heart, and conscience. We only cease to be the servants of men, that we may be the servants of God. We are raised into a higher sphere, where perfect liberty is merged in absolute subjection. As the Church is the aggregate of believers, there is an intimate analogy between

the experience of the individual believer, and of the Church as a whole. The believer ceases to be the servant of sin, that he may be the servant of righteousness; he is redeemed from the law, that he may be the servant of Christ. So the Church is delivered from an illegitimate authority, not that she may be lawless, but subject to an authority legitimate and divine. The Reformers, therefore, as instruments in the hands of God, in delivering the Church from bondage to prelates, did not make it a tumultuous multitude, in which every man was a law to himself, free to believe, and free to do what he pleased. The Church, in all the exercise of her power, in reference either to doctrine or discipline, acts under the written law of God, as recorded in his word.

But besides this, the power of the