churches, under any of the different forms or conceptions just referred to. No directions are given as to who shall be their constituent members or officers; no laws are laid down for their government any more than for the doctrines of faith to be received, or the rites and modes of worship to be observed within them. Allusions occur, it is true, to persons who appear to have been appointed to perform certain duties and services; as, for example, in the words deacon, elder, overseer (sometimes rendered bishop); and from the occurrence of such terms inferences have been made as to the nature of the constitution and government of the early Christian congregations. But such inferences are inferences only. Nothing express is laid down on the subject, and hence there are no authoritative means, worthy to be so considered, for settling the old dispute as to whether a Christian Church should be Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or Congregational. This question, in short, does not appear to have engaged the attention of the New Testament writers, as indeed it is one of very secondary importance, and we need not here further concern ourselves with it. The fact, however, that the greatest differences of opinion have existed on the subject, may be noted as sufficiently proving that nothing very definite or imperative has been handed down to us in the Christian writings, and that the Christian brotherhood is therefore left to constitute itself into churches and congregations according to its own varying judgments, and in obedience to the tastes and circumstances that may exist from time to time.

In this connection it should be remembered that the first Christians were Jews, and it nowhere appears that they ever thought of displacing or superseding the ancient faith and worship of their fathers by any new system of their

own.

Moreover, there was another very cogent reason why they could not have done so did not think of doing so. They

were expecting the end of the world and the speedy return of Christ to reign in person among his followers on the earth. Hence the established forms of the old religion and the services of the synagogues might well enough continue as they were, until the expected "restitution of all things" should take effect and should sweep the old away; until the new heavens and the new earth should be ready for the saints, and the kingdom of God, with all that this involved, should be established.*

Such expectations have never been fulfilled. They were but the dream of an enthusiasm that was in time to pass away; but nevertheless such ideas had their consequences. The early Christians refrained from the attempt to legislate for the churches of the future; and so their successors of later ages have been left practically free, as just said, to pursue their own course in this respect. Hence have arisen the manifold "differences of administration" which now so largely exist;-from the elaborate Church system, the pomp and circumstance and the complicated theology of the Roman Catholic communion, down through many gradations, to the simplest forms of belief, and the humblest "meeting," where only two or three are gathered together in Christ's name. These are all, we must conclude, if honestly followed, legitimate results and expressions of religious faith, of reverence and loyalty to Christ. The spirit and letter of the Gospel would seem to have been purposely left wide and comprehensive enough to admit of all such different forms and modes of Church life. Nor ought any one of them, therefore, to arrogate to itself the character of being the only true Church, or say of another, merely because it is another, that it is less Christian than itself, or less acceptable to the Object of worship, or less likely to have His divine approval and blessing.

The varied and different forms under which the Christian

*Compare Acts i. 6-11, iii. 19-21; 2 Pet. iii.

brotherhood has thus come to exist in the world constitute a fact to the importance of which no observant man will pretend to close his eyes. It is a fact, also, which, in a certain sense, has been more and more forcing itself upon the consideration even of the statesmen and Parliaments of modern times. Well would it have been for our common country, for the social and religious peace of our people in past times, if the Reformers of the sixteenth century had seen it and kept it in view, and provided for it more and better than they did, in the great work which they undertook of reorganising the national churches of that day. If they had done so, they would, like the early Christians, have refrained from the attempt to set up rigid and unchangeable orthodoxies of faith and worship: in other words, they would have recognised, as they ought to have done, the possibility of progress in knowledge, of better insight into religious truths, of the growth of higher tastes and feelings in this and other nations; and they would have left a larger amount of freedom of thought and speech to their successors within the churches for future generations. Had this been done, not only would such things as prosecutions for heresy, and persecution of every kind, have been well-nigh impossible, but the indefinite multiplication of separately organised sects would certainly have been checked, if not entirely prevented; and, as a consequence, greater numbers of our people would at this moment have had their religious home within the shelter of one great national fold.

But all this was not seen, probably was never thought of, by the sovereigns and statesmen to whom in this country we owe our existing national Church. In accordance with the ideas of their time they thought it necessary not only to construct, or reconstruct, what may be termed the organism of the body ecclesiastical, but also to appoint the Creeds that must be believed, and even, in some cases, to dictate

the very words of prayer and praise which must be addressed to God; and they did this so effectually that their work remains still with little alteration. In the Anglican establishment it still holds true that no minister shall deviate from the appointed forms of belief, or alter the prescribed words of the services, however much his private conscience, or that of his people, may be offended by their

use.

men.

The necessary consequence of this rigidity and narrowness of constitution was, and is, that multitudes from the first have been and are compelled to stand apart from the Established Churches; and by so doing they are necessarily deprived and lose their share of the privileges of one kind and another which have usually gone with the particular form of religious belief and worship specially recognised by the ruling or State power. This condition of exclusion and deprivation, as attaching to the Nonconformist bodies of Great Britain, is being gradually recognised by our statesThe remedy, too, has been in some measure applied, and is being still applied, as the national conscience becomes more enlightened and the practical injustice of the established system is being more fully and clearly seen. No thanks to the Church, however, as a body, for these concessions to just principle. It is the State alone to which we owe them. Nor has this gradual recognition of the rights of others been brought about without heartburnings and conflicts. It may be said to have commenced in earnest with the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, more than half a century ago. Its latest fruit is the Burials Actits latest, but, it is very safe to say, not its last; for it cannot be doubted that the course of just reformation must go on, until every right and privilege and endowment of every kind, which the nation has to bestow in connection with religion, shall be attainable alike, so far as the nature of the case allows, by every subject of these realms.

It is not practicable here to enter into many details; but it may be permitted to illustrate this position by referring to a case, in the national life of our day, to which these remarks appear to be especially applicable. The Principality of Wales is eminently a land of Nonconformists. A large proportion of the people-probably three-fourths of themare outside of the national Church; nor can they, from one cause or other, conscientiously enter it. But does this, however it may have been brought to pass, afford any just reason why all these people should continue to be deprived of their just share of the substantial means and advantages which have come down to us from the past, and from common ancestors, for the maintenance of religion and of religious services and institutions? Is there now any sufficient reason in the nature of the case why all such advantages should remain so exclusively in the hands of a minority of the whole people?—of a minority, too, who are so well able to provide for themselves?—those who constitute that minority being so largely provided for and favoured, while all the rest are left uncared-for and unaided? Such questions as these are equally applicable to England, and, though perhaps in a less degree, to Scotland also. It is not only a Burials Act that is required to put an end to this great anomaly; but a change of a far more comprehensive and effectual kind, whether that change shall come in the form of what is termed "disestablishment," or in that other and perhaps better form of the equal admission of all existing religious communions to the fullest advantages of national recognition.

Time was, indeed, when there was a degree of reason and a show of justice, in giving all that the nation had to give for the service of religion to the one national institution, because it comprehended the vast majority of the population of the country, while those who stood apart from its communion were comparatively unimportant in point of