not minutely controlled by the stereotyped forms of any authorized or commanded liturgy. Not condemning either the principle or the use of a liturgy, the Presbyterian Church, nevertheless, from a conviction that the practice of confining ministers to set or fixed forms of prayer for public worship, derives no warrant from the spirit and examples of the word of God, nor from the practice of the primitive church, and that it is, moreover, unprofitable, burdensome to Christian liberty, and otherwise inexpedient, disapproves of such restriction; but she has, at the same time, made such provision in her Directory" for the service, that it may be performed with dignity

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declared a 'religion unfit for a gentleman,' is expressed in a single word-Predestination. Did a proud aristocracy trace its lineage through generations of a high-born ancestry, the republican Reformer brought down the record of the noblest enfranchisement from 'the book of life.' His converts defied the opposing world; and standing serenely amid the crumbling fabrics of centuries of superstition, they had faith in one another; and the martyrdoms of Cambray, the fires of Smithfield, and the surrender of benefices by two thousand nonconformist Presbyterians, attest their perseverance. Such was the system which for a century and a half assumed the guardianship and liberty for the English world.

"To advance intellectual freedom, Calvinism absolutely denied the 'sacrament' of ordination: thus breaking up the great monopoly of priestcraft, and scattering the ranks of superstition. To restrain absolute monarchy in France, in Scotland, and in England, it allied itself with the decaying feudal aristocracy which it was sure to outlive; to protect itself against the feudal aristocracy it infused itself into the mercantile class and the inferior gentry; and to secure a life in the public mind, in Geneva, and in Scotland, wherever it gained dominion, it invoked intelligence for the people, and in every parish planted the common school.

"Calvinism overthrew priestcraft; Calvinism saw in goodness infinite joy, in evil infi. nite wo; and recognising no other abiding distinctions, opposed secretly, but surely, hereditary monarchy, aristocracy, and bondage. Massachusetts owned no king but the King of heaven; no aristocracy but of the redeemed; and no bondage but the hopeless, infinite, and eternal bondage of sin. Calvinism invoked intelligence against Satan, the great enemy of the human race; and the farmers and seamen of Massachusetts nourished its college with corn and strings of wampum, and in every village built the free school. Thus had the principle of freedom of mind first asserted for the common people, under a religious form, by Wiclif, been pursued ; until at last it reached a perfect developement, coinciding with the highest attainment of European philosophy."-Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. i. pp. 279, 289, 290, 460, 469; vol. ii. pp. 459-463.

One more testimony is appended. It is of the highest value; because it is the conclusion of an essay, the design of which is this: expressly to invalidate and disprove the Calvinistic theory of the divine government both in providence and grace.

Practical Tendency of Calvinism.-"From the earliest ages down to our own days, if we consider the character of the ancient Stoics, the Jewish Essenes, the modern Calvinists, and Jansenists; when compared with that of the Epicureans, the Sadducees, Arminians, and the Jesuits; we shall find that they have ever excelled in no small degree in the practice of the most rigid and respectable virtues; and have been the highest honour of their own ages, and the best models for imitation to every age succeeding."—Encyclopædia Britannica, article PREDESTINATION.

and propriety, as well as profit, to those who join in it, and that it may not be disgraced by mean, irregular, or extravagant effusions.

The Presbyterian Church, moreover, prescribes no canonical vestments for her ministers; possesses no altar, but only a communion table; and instead of kneeling at the Lord's Supper, the communicants sit; she rejects lay-baptism, and godfathers and godmothers, and the sign of the cross in baptism; and she repudiates all saints' days, and observes the Lord's day as the sabbath and as the only season of holy time commanded to Christians.

In all these matters, it is believed that she is sanctioned by the scriptures, the practice of the primitive church, and the principles of the purest churches of the Reformation; while her own history and experience furnish a confirmation of the value of her practice, which she fears not to compare with that of any other religious community, in its influence, (as well as the influence of her doctrines and discipline,) on the order and decorum of public worship, on the purity in the faith of her ministers, on the edification of the worshippers, and on the sanctification of their hearts and lives.

The plan of government rests on these avowed and cardinal principles-That God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrine and commandments of men, which are in any thing contrary to his word, or beside it in matters of faith or worship. That the rights of private judgment, in all matters that respect religion, are universal and unalienable. That it is not even desirable to see any religious constitution aided by the civil power, farther than may be necessary for protection and security, and at the same time be equal and common to all others. That, in perfect consistency with the above principle of common right, every Christian church or union or association of particular churches, is entitled to declare the terms of admission into its communion, and the qualifications of its ministers and members, as well as the whole system of its internal government which Christ hath appointed. That our blessed Saviour, for the edification of the visible church, hath appointed officers, not only to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments, but also to exercise discipline, for the preservation both of truth and duty, by censuring or casting out the erroneous or scandalous, according to the rules contained in the word of God; that, nevertheless, there are truths and forms with respect to which men of good characters may differ, and in all these it is the duty both of private Christians and societies, to exercise mutual forbearance towards each other. That the character, qualifications, and authority of church officers are laid down in the holy scriptures, as well as the proper method of their

investiture and institution; yet the election of the persons to the exercise of this authority in any particular society is in that society. That all church power, whether exercised by the body in general, or in the way of representation by delegated authority, is only ministerial and declarative; that is, the holy scriptures are the only rule of faith and manners, no church judicatory having the right to make laws to bind the conscience, by virtue of their own authority, but only to judge upon laws already made, and common to all who profess the gospel; and all their decisions should be founded on the revealed will of God; and that ecclesiastical discipline must be purely moral, or spiritual in its object, and not attended with any civil effects; and it can derive no force whatever, but from its own justice, the approbation of an impartial public, and the countenance and blessing of the great Head of the Church universal.

It is farther held by Presbyterians, that Christ has appointed and established in the holy scriptures a certain definite form of government for his Church; that, however many particular churches may be constituted, they are not independent societies, but are connected parts of one body; that the actions and operations of the several parts should be in subordination to the whole; that this being an organized body, it is furnished with officers for the purpose of communicating instruction, and for the orderly government of the society; that these offices were expressly instituted by Christ, the only Head of the Church, before he left the world; that some of them were, at first, endowed with extraordinary powers; but the ordinary and permanent officers of the Church-as organized by the apostles, after the model of the Jewish Synagogue, which was undoubtedly Presbyterian,—are pastors or teachers, elders who rule, and deacons who have charge of the alms for the poor; that as to bishops and presbyters, the holy scriptures make no difference between them; these, like other names therein applied to the ministers of the gospel, being applied promiscuously and indifferently to the same officers; that the same character and powers being also, in the scriptures, ascribed interchangeably to bishops and presbyters, it is plain that they are identical both as to their order and their name; and therefore all the ministers of the gospel, although described by different names and titles which designate their various functions, are of equal official rank. That the apostles indeed were invested with authority over all the churches and all the other ministers; but as they have no successors in their inspiration and miraculous gifts, by which they were qualified to exercise such a power over their brethren, so they have no successors in that plenary authority, which

Christ committed to them; but, since their departure out of the world, all regular pastors and teachers in the Church of Christ are equal in authority, no one being invested with power to rule over his brethren in the ministry, although each is appointed a ruler as well as an instructer over the flock of which he has been regularly constituted a bishop; and the presbyterate being the highest permanent office in the Church, every faithful pastor of a flock is successor to the apostles in every thing in which they were to have any successors, and is scripturally ordained with the "laying on of the hands. of the presbytery;" that the difference which, in after ages, sprung up, has no foundation or vestige in the sacred record; that the gradual introduction of prelacy within the first four centuries, was not only practicable, but one of the most natural and probable of all events; how it came to pass, it is not difficult to explain; and the most competent judges and profound inquirers into early history, have pronounced that it actually took place; that all arguments which our Episcopal brethren profess to derive from scripture in favour of their system, are perfectly hugatory, and do not yield it the least solid support; that while the advocates for prelacy, or diocesan episcopacy, have mainly relied on the fathers, the fathers of the first two centuries are so far from furnishing a single passage which gives even a semblance of aid to the episcopal cause, that, like the scriptures, they every where speak a language wholly inconsistent with it, and favourable only to the doctrine of ministerial parity; that the great body of the reformers and other witnesses for the truth, of different ages and nations, with one voice, maintained the same doctrine, as taught in scripture, and in the primitive church; and that even the most conspicuous English Reformers, while they assisted in organizing an episcopal establishment in their own country, defended it on the ground of human expediency and the will of the magistrate, rather than that of divine right; and they acknowledged the foreign churches, which were organized presbyterially, to be true churches of Jesus Christ; that the Church of England, and those churches which have immediately descended from her, stand absolutely alone in the whole Protestant world, in representing bishops as an order of clergy superior to presbyters; all other Protestants, even those who adopt a sort of prelacy, having pronounced it be a mere human invention; that some of the most learned and pious bishops and other divines of the Church of England, have utterly disclaimed the divine right of diocescan episcopacy; and have declared that they considered a great majority of the clergy of that church, in later as well as earlier times, as of the same opinion with themselves; and, that such like

various, abundant, and explicit testimony, not only establishes in the most perfect manner the validity of the Presbyterian ordinations and ministry, but it goes farther, and proves that they are superior to the Episcopal, as being more scriptural, more conformable to primitive usage, and possessing more of that whole character which is fitted to satisfy an humble, simple-hearted, Bible Christian. Therefore, although some zealous advocates for the divine right of diocesan episcopacy charge them with schism, for being out of the communion of their church, and denounce our ministry and ordinances as invalid: Presbyterians may well receive such charges and denunciations with the same calm, unmoved, dispassionate, and conscious superiority, that they feel when a partisan of the Papacy denounces them for rejecting the supremacy of the Pope, and questions the possibility of their salvation out of the Church of Rome.

And as the church is one body: so, for the wise and orderly government of the whole, it is expedient to have a gradation of courts or judicatories, from the authorities which pertain to a particular church, through as many gradations as may have been established, up to the highest judicatory which can be assembled, with convenience, for the decision of all matters, according to the word of God, which may relate to the welfare and increase of the church. And it is accordingly held to be agreeable to the scriptures that the church be governed by congregational, presbyterial, and synodical assemblies.

These are severally composed, both of ministers, or those elders whose office it is to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments, as well as to bear rule; and ruling elders, whose office has been understood by a great part of the Protestant Reformed Churches, to be designated in the holy scriptures by the title of "governments," and of those "elders who rule well," but do not labour in the word and doctrine. Hence is derived the name "Presbyterian," from the Greek words πρεσβύτερος and πρεσβυτέριον, which, as they occur in the New Testament, respectively signify an elder, and a body of elders, or a presbytery.

The officers of a particular church, when it is fully organized, are a bishop, or pastor,-or more as the case may be-a bench of ruling elders, and a bench of deacons. The pastor, or pastors, and the ruling elders, compose the church session. To this body is confided the spiritual government of the congregation; for which purpose, they have power to inquire into the knowledge and Christian conduct of the members of the church; to call before them offenders and witnesses; to receive members into the church; to admonish, to rebuke, to suspend, or exclude from the sacraments those who are found to